


Dawn of Consummation

by Hajinnie



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Aftermath of Violence, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Angst, Developing Relationship, Drama & Romance, Implied Mpreg, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M, Mentions of Death, Mystery, Near Future, Non-Linear Narrative, Past Relationship(s), Post-Apocalypse, Pre-Apocalypse, Smut, Soul Bond, Supernatural Elements
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-20
Updated: 2019-05-20
Packaged: 2020-03-06 17:07:43
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 37,624
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18855358
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hajinnie/pseuds/Hajinnie
Summary: Riddled by debt, Chanyeol is sold off to an anonymous buyer who happens to be an old flame, Kyungsoo. From there on, Chanyeol was just a normal alpha trying to get back with Kyungsoo, despite all the hardships. However, when the world stood in their way, one of them ended up killing almost the entire human population just so they could be together again. This is the story of what and how it happened.





	1. 1/4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Twitter](https://twitter.com/hajinnie)   
>  [CC](https://curiouscat.me/hajinnie)

 

_In the year 2072, Chanyeol is one of the 900 million or so humans left alive on the planet after what was believed to be a mysterious chemically engineered weapon, was unleashed onto mankind twenty years prior._

_Chanyeol knew better than that though._

_The remaining 9 billion humans who perished did not technically die and instead became mindless zombies who wandered around the abandoned and desolate landscape, preying on the survivors for food._

_However, the humans who survived also suffered a different curse of their own. The vaccine administered to them left them sterile, infertile and unable to age further than their present age. Children never grew up and the old had to point a gun to their heads if they wished to die._

_Although the humans were technically immortal and did not have to reproduce to sustain their population, they were not invincible and susceptible to such an attack that would reduce their population at any time again._

_The remaining humans banded together in several cities on the continents throughout the globe, living in walled-up cities to keep out the zombies._

_In Asia, the main settlement of humans was on the Hong Kong Island, which was seen as the most strategic place due its small land size, the abundance of buildings and the ease of cutting off an island from the rest of the world._

_Chanyeol now leads the 5th Division of the Asian Army, who is tasked in protecting the surviving humans, eradicating the zombies and slowly reclaim the land from their infestation._

_Every morning, Chanyeol goes out in his uniform to the walls that border the island from the causeway. He inspects the soldiers on duty there and addresses them as he looks out to inspect the zombies being shot down by artillery if they come within range of the guns near the walls._

_While frozen at the physical appearance of a man in his early-thirties for the rest of his life, he is respected by his subordinates who look up to him as their charismatic leader._

_But Chanyeol was not always a military leader and skilled fighter in the human forces. Twenty years ago, he was on the board of directors for a large multinational company and a husband._

_Every morning while Chanyeol looked out from the watchtower on the wall, several hundred meters high above the ground, he would feel the sea breeze blowing out from the glistening sea and he would relive day by day of what he had done._

_While enjoying the temporary sense of serenity in such a black, desolate world, Chanyeol rested a hand on the hilt of his sheathed sword on his belt at his left hip._

_Ever since the apocalypse, short-ranged weapons such as swords had become commonplace to use in the fight against zombies because it didn’t require ammunition, due to limited resources to manufacture them._

_It was another routine day that morning. After his daily rounds and inspection of the border wall, Chanyeol received an alert from one of the soldiers that a group of humans living outside the walls were being chased by a group of zombies and were making their way to the wall, requesting protection inside there._

_It was not an uncommon incident actually. After the apocalypse two decades ago that wiped out almost all the human population, there were several groups of humans who formed groups and colonies of their own, refusing to live within the walls and be subjected to the strict conscription and regulations the authorities of the walls enforced._

_When the side effects of the vaccine administered to the surviving humans were also discovered, some groups of humans banded together to leave the walls to avoid the vaccine because it was a strict regulation that was enforced within the walls._

_These group of humans had several beliefs to reject the vaccine, with some of the beliefs being that it was a government conspiracy to control the population or that they simply didn’t want to be affected by the side effects of the vaccine and want to continue having children._

_Although the citizen of the walled cities thought it was selfish to continue to have children because of the state their world was in, the humans outside the walls thought differently._

_Chanyeol could see the right and wrong in both ideologies but he wasn’t sure himself which was the better of the two anyway._

_Ironically, it was also pretty often that these humans living outside the walls changed their minds when they could no longer find food, got sick themselves or when their settlements became severely overridden with the threat of zombies._

_Then, they would attempt to flee to the nearest walled city and willingly accept the walled city’s regulations which they initially rejected so they could live safely._

_It was another of those days._

_A soldier reported to Chanyeol that a group of about eight humans, two of them being children, were en route to the Hong Kong wall on the bridge from Mainland China._

_Their colony had been overturned by a horde of zombies numbering the thousands and the remaining survivors were now seeking asylum within the walls._

_That wouldn’t have been a big problem to quarantine eight humans until they were clear to enter the city. But the problem was the thousands of zombies currently in pursuit and chasing after them as they approached the Hong Kong walls._

_The human survivors managed to obtain a still functioning truck which they were driving on the bridge to the Hong Kong wall._

_However, zombies were fast runners though and because they were neither dead nor living; hence they never tired out and never stopped chasing, giving the human survivors on the truck a chase all the way there._

_Through the cameras along the bridge, Chanyeol saw as the truck drove through with thousands of zombies chasing after them, while the leader of the humans was desperately pleading through help over the radio._

_Chanyeol couldn’t risk the lives of the millions of people living within the Hong Kong wall to be jeopardized because of just eight people._

_“What is our approach, sir? Do we open the gates to let them in or not?” A soldier stood at attention, awaiting her orders to be given out._

_Over the radio, the leader of the survivors was still pleading to be let in as they fast approached the wall, with the zombies closing in on them from behind. The bridge was one of the longest in the world so they still had a bit way to go._

_“Let me think,” Chanyeol pondered, standing on the watchtower at the top of the wall as he looked out to the bridge and the sea ahead of him, where neither the survivors nor the zombies were in sight yet._

_When a large number of zombies reached within the kill zone of the walls, the soldiers there would fire the heavy artillery machine guns mounted on the walls towards the zombies at ground level. This time it was difficult because their fire could also hit the human survivors approaching them._

_There was barely enough time to let the survivors in without risking any of the zombies entering too._

_Chanyeol also had to decide if all the risk was worth saving just eight humans who didn’t want to obey the rules of the wall in the first place, to decide if this was the fate they deserved._

_“Start firing once the first zombies enter the kill zone. Keep your fire as far as possible from the humans and try to not let the zombie line advance further than a safe distance from the survivors,” Chanyeol instructed the soldier._

_“Yes, sir,” The soldier saluted him before asking, “But what about the survivors, sir? Do we open the gates to let them in? Some of the zombies might make it past the line of fire.”_

_“I have that covered,” Chanyeol affirmed, gripping the sheath of the sword around his waist, “I’ll call ‘him’ for help too. Don’t open the gates until we give you the clear to do so.”_

_“Do you think ‘he’ll’ come?” The soldier questioned again._

_“I hope so,” Chanyeol expected._

_The soldier left to inform the wall artillery squad of the orders while Chanyeol took a cable lift down the side of the wall by himself before it was quickly pulled back up by the soldiers as was the safety procedure._

_There, Chanyeol stood on the empty bridge alone, with the massive wall behind him already ready to fire once the zombies entered the kill zone._

_Even from below, Chanyeol could see the soldiers lined up against the wall, armed and ready._

_The survivors were fast approaching. Chanyeol had already contacted ‘him’, but not knowing if ‘he’ would actually come._

_There was a reason why Chanyeol and this other male were the only people who dared to face zombies alone._

_They too could not age like all the humans living in the walls, but not because of the vaccine. On top of that, they were cursed with immortality for their sins, forced to live with what they have done until the end of times._

_Chanyeol couldn’t tell anyone about it and even he did, they would tell him it wasn’t his fault and that he was merely a victim._

_But, Chanyeol knew that he was the cause of why the world had turned out like this._

 

 

 

 **

 

 

 

Chanyeol never understood how his father who supposedly worked a regular government job and his mother, a housewife, were able to afford the luxuries they showered him and his sister, Yoora while growing up.

 

Chanyeol didn’t get how his parents were able to afford expensive private school tuition for both him and Yoora, afford to buy them new cars when they got their driver’s license, afford to bring them to expensive exotic locations for vacations every year, pay for Yoora’s expensive destination wedding and for her to move to a different country while Chanyeol was jobless after graduation with his parents fully supporting him.

 

 

 

 

 

For almost twenty-seven years, Chanyeol was deluded of the truth. Sometime in the summer of 2053, being the unemployed person he was, he would wake up at noon, order delivery and then throw his dishes into the sink and then go out to the internet café to play games with other people.

 

After spending the entire day at an internet café, he came home only to find that his parents had committed double suicide.

 

 

 

 

Chanyeol had a Master’s degree related to finance and accounting which he pursued right after finishing his undergraduate degree. But he only knew how to study and not how to work. In a society where alphas were expected to be well-educated and have good jobs to support a family, Chanyeol was missing one of the important criteria.

 

He only continued studying further so his parents would continue supporting him, which they would likely refuse to do if he had a job. He wanted the excuse to continue living with them and letting them support him.

 

Chanyeol was an alpha but he spent most of his life like an omega, who was waiting for the right alpha to come in and mate them to support them for the rest of their life.

Although it had been two years since Chanyeol obtained his Master’s degree, he still continued to live with his parents and be unemployed because he was their youngest child and they spoiled him very much.

 

 

 

 

 

It was only at his parent’s funeral a week later when Chanyeol finally found out how his parents were able to upkeep such a lifestyle throughout the years.

 

Chanyeol’s father had been using his position in the government to award tenders and contracts to people from the criminal underworld, who used the projects as fronts for their illegal businesses. Chanyeol’s mother was also aware of this and helped hide his secret.

 

In return, they had been giving Chanyeol’s father bribes and a cut of the profit for doing so. This gave Chanyeol’s family a substantial amount of money, but it didn’t last for too long.

 

They soon got addicted to the lifestyle they could not afford and began borrowing money from these same people to upkeep it.

 

When they were riddled with debt and everything they owned was not enough to cover the debts, Chanyeol’s parents decided to commit suicide together hoping it would absolve them of debts.

 

It only made things worse actually.

 

 

 

 

 

 

At the funeral house, a group of unknown men in black suits marched into the hall to pay respects to Chanyeol’s dead parents. One of them was dressed in a different and more expensive looking suit. He had an expensive gold watch on his wrist, visible tattoos on the back of his palm and a gold chain hanging from his neck.

 

It didn’t take a genius to know who that man was, although most of the mourners were surprised to see such a person at the funeral of Chanyeol’s parents, them being unaware of the type of deals they had done in their life.

 

 

 

Then, after this group of men had paid their respects, they dragged Chanyeol off the altar, who was serving as the chief mourner of the ceremony.

 

Yoora wailed and tried to chase after Chanyeol, but was held back by her husband and in-laws, because they didn’t want her involved.

 

Everyone else in attendance was stunned and shocked but nobody did anything. They only murmured and whispered, asking one another if they should call the police or somebody to intervene. But nobody ever took any action.

 

 

 

 

 

Chanyeol, still wearing the chief mourner’s black suit with a white band around his arm, was thrown into the back of a black limousine with a knife pointed to his neck.

 

The man in the expensive suit handed him papers and told Chanyeol to read it. Chanyeol knew these entire contract and finance jargons, well enough to know that his parents owed these people a large amount of money amounting to 7 billion won with interest included.

 

And in the contract, they signed for the repayments, mentioned that if all their liquidated assets weren’t enough to cover it all, they would pass on the debt to be bore upon by their son, Park Chanyeol.

 

 

His parents had even signed the contract with their thumbprints, inked in their blood, beside a seal resembling a golden dragon etched into the paper.

 

Chanyeol was horrified. His parents had just died and while still mourning over them, he was mortified to find out the extent of the money they owe.

 

 

 

But still, it wasn’t surprising. The world had been a fucked up place since the late aughts. Wars were breaking out through the world, the refugee crisis was on the rise, racial tension had grown worse, inflation was burdening the people and capitalism was at its peak monstrosity.

 

The human population kept increasing while perishable supplies and resources kept dwindling down. Money was a commodity and the rich held all the power while getting richer by the day.

 

Human life just wasn’t as valuable as it was before then. It was so easy to just sell off a human as easy as it was to add another one to the population.

 

 

 

 

 

“-but I don’t have 7 billion won. I don’t even have 1/10th of that,” Chanyeol blubbered, uneasy in the back of the moving limousine.

 

“We know,” The man in the expensive suit asserted, “That’s the amount of debt after everything else has been deducted from. We now own every single penny and speck of dust that your parent used to own, so we’ve actually reduced the total from that. We are aware you have nothing.”

 

“I’ll find a job! I promise, so please let me go. I won’t tell anyone about this either. I will pay you back even if it takes me years. I wasn’t aware of the money they owed so please, give me a chance,” Chanyeol pleaded, trembling as he pressed his hands together and bowed his head low.

 

“We did the math, Chanyeol. Even if you went out and got a job now with average pay for your education and experience level and gave us all your salary, you’d still take at least a hundred years to pay us back everything your parents owed,” The man explained, “-You’re supposed to be an alpha. Aren’t you ashamed of yourself?”

 

“No, I’ll find another way! I’ll do it!” Chanyeol pleaded, “Please, I beg you.”

 

“We know you’ll do it because you fear for your life. That’s why we’re giving you the opportunity to repay off all your debts like what the contract says,” The man dangled the document in front of Chanyeol, pointing to the clause which Chanyeol’s parents had signed for.

 

“I’ll work for you then. I’ll do anything you ask me to and you don’t have to pay me. Please,” Chanyeol continued to plead, feeling cold all of a sudden.

 

“Oh, we don’t need you. We’re not hiring,” The man cackled, “We’re giving you the opportunity to work for someone else who is willing to pay off all your debts in exchange for your life.”

 

“-m-my life?” Chanyeol stuttered.

 

“Yes, you will be sold as an individual to whoever is willing to bail you out of debt.” The man reiterated, leaning forward on the seat across from Chanyeol.

 

“Why would they need me?” Chanyeol blurted out.

 

“They can do whatever they want with you. It’s up to them, not us. We’re only the middlemen. You’re not an omega so you can’t give birth and not many alphas are interested in having alpha sex slaves. Omegas don’t have to pay to mate so why would they buy you? You’ll probably be used for organ harvesting or forced into fighting rings where you’ll fight until death,” The man revealed.

 

Chanyeol went silent and still, hearing what the man had to tell him. Chanyeol couldn’t quite believe it yet and he was still unable to fathom the full extent of how bad things had gotten.

 

 

 

 

 

 

When the limousine stopped, Chanyeol’s head was covered with a bag and he was led into a building by a few men.

 

The bag over his head was only removed when he was thrown into a small cramped room with a dirtied bed, a rusted pail and a lamp that flickered and seemed to malfunction. There were no windows and the doors were made of sturdy metal that could not be broken down.

 

 

 

The room was stuffy, claustrophobic and the once white walls were stained with mold from sweat, grime, and dirt of its previous occupants. There were clawing and nail marks down the door, showing that someone there once had probably injured themselves doing so.

 

The bed smelled bad and was too worn down. The floors were even worse so Chanyeol had no choice but to sit at the cleanest corner of the bed he could find and hug himself, curling his legs up to his chest with his head between his knees as he cried.

 

 

 

 

 

Chanyeol was still mourning over the loss of his parents. When he closed his eyes, he could still see their pale and blue faces when he saw their bodies hanging from a beam in their house.

 

Now he was forced into this and god knows what else, all while he was probably at the lowest he had ever been in his life.

 

 

 

It was maybe from the position of tucking his head between his legs, the stench of the confined room or not eating and staying up all night before the funeral ceremony that caused Chanyeol to throw up.

 

Chanyeol vomited, retching and dry heaving into the rusted pail which was surprisingly clean but worn. Chanyeol then wiped his mouth off with the tie he was still wearing, gazing up at the ceiling and the flickering lamp while he pondered his fate.

 

Chanyeol prepared for the worst so maybe he wouldn’t be too disappointed or shocked at what happened next.

 

 

 

 

 

In the room, Chanyeol had no way of telling how much time had passed but every now and then, an equally scary looking alpha would open the door to throw a Styrofoam takeout and a bottle of water at him.

 

The food was cheap, not that well cooked and cold but Chanyeol didn’t complain. At least he was being fed and hydrated.

 

After a few hours, the scary alpha came around again and instructed Chanyeol to leave and come with him. He was even taller and bigger than Chanyeol was. Chanyeol felt intimidated by this large man's presence because he was used to being the biggest and tallest alpha around.

 

 

 

The burly, tall alpha brought Chanyeol down a hallway lined with doors that looked similar to the one in Chanyeol’s room. Sometimes, Chanyeol could hear banging and screaming sounds from inside the rooms.

 

Chanyeol occasionally stopped halfway, shocked at what he heard to be people inside there. The burly alpha would push him and tell him to keep walking nonetheless.

 

 

 

 

Chanyeol was brought to another room with white walls, which was well lit and appeared to be one for photography judging by the types of equipment there.

 

Another man who was smaller, more refined looking, who wore glasses and was obviously an omega, fixed up Chanyeol’s suit and tie. He also combed Chanyeol’s hair and took off the funeral armband before telling him to stand up against a wall and smile, while he fixed a camera on the stand.

 

 

The omega told Chanyeol to smile because the pictures would be used to show to the potential buyers, alongside a profile of his physiques and attributes in order to catch the attention of those who were interested.

 

Chanyeol’s picture was taken and he forced himself to smile, albeit a fake and fabricated one, for the sake of not getting hurt.  Then, the omega helped measure Chanyeol’s height, weight and body measurements before sending him off with the burly man from earlier on.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chanyeol was sent back into the cramped room and while he was being led back there, he often looked behind hoping to see an escape or anyone who would help him. There were nothing and nobody, of course, nothing but a continuous downward spiral of despair.

 

The door was slammed in his face again and Chanyeol remained in the room for what felt like an eternity.

 

 

 

 

Food and water were delivered to him and Chanyeol used that as a measurement for time.

 

Occasionally, the pail he had vomited and relieved himself in was taken away, cleaned and emptied out by the burly man whom Chanyeol assumed to be the caretaker of the place.

 

Before the pail was taken out and cleaned, the room would reek of the stench of piss and defecation, so much that Chanyeol had to shove it under the bed and put a pillow over it to cover the smell which was even worse because of the confined space.

 

 

 

 

 

After maybe six or seven more meal rounds, Chanyeol was told to get out of the room again with the burly alpha accompanying him. Chanyeol was brought to meet the omega with the glasses again, who showed him to a shower and told him to clean up while handing him new clothes to wear.

 

Chanyeol did as he was told and once he was cleaned up and dressed in the new clothes which were just a new plain shirt and jeans. After that, the burly man covered his head with a bag like when he first arrived. Chanyeol never saw the funeral suit he wore ever again.

 

 

 

Chanyeol was walked out of the building and into a car, where the burly alpha maintained his iron grip on his arm.

 

Chanyeol didn’t utter a single word but he had a strong feeling that someone had probably bought him and that he was now being shipped off to them. Under the bag over his head, Chanyeol cried but forced himself to stop when it started to get suffocating.

 

For some reasons, Chanyeol hoped that this person who had bought him would just use him for harvesting organs, such as his heart, so he would die and need not to suffer anymore.

Chanyeol knew it was probably selfish of him but he just didn’t want to get hurt anymore.

 

Being alive in such a world proved to be too difficult.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The drive took hours but Chanyeol wasn’t sure because he had no way of tracking time. It just felt like it.

 

Chanyeol fell asleep halfway through the journey, exhausted by the mental and physical exertion he had been put through over the past few days. The rocking of the car didn’t help either except to lull him to sleep.

 

 

 

 

 

 

When Chanyeol woke up again, the bag over his head was gone and he could finally see.

The car was empty and Chanyeol looked around to see a large white house on a forested estate around it.

 

The car was parked in the middle of the driveway and before Chanyeol could check to see if the doors were unlocked, the burly alpha swung the door opened and dragged him out.

 

Chanyeol obeyed and was walked down the driveway; leading up to the house with bushes of flowers out in front.

 

 

 

Chanyeol was walked through the wide-open double doors that were as grand as the house itself. Chanyeol found himself in a large hallway with a high ceiling and a chandelier hanging from it.

 

There were stairs that led up to another floor and the walls were adorned with expensive paintings.

The house was painted with light blue and white colors and it was bright too inside.

 

The burly alpha remained holding onto Chanyeol until he heard a woman gasp and cry out loud from the top of the stairs. Then, the burly man let Chanyeol go.

 

 

 

Chanyeol looked up to see his sister, Yoora. All of a sudden he was excited but also worried at the same time.

 

“Oh my god, Chanyeol. You’re safe,” Yoora cried out, running down the stairs and then towards him to give him a hug.

 

Chanyeol hugged her back, gasping in relief, “What happened? Why are you here? Are you alright?”

Yoora pulled from the hug, nodding with tears in the corner of her eyes, “Yes, I’m alright. Don’t worry about me. I was concerned for you when they took you away. Did they hurt you?”

 

“Not really. I think I’m alright,” Chanyeol wasn’t even too sure himself.

 

“Where is this? What are we doing here? Whose house is this?” Chanyeol began to ask, feeling a lot safer with Yoora’s assurance.

 

Before Yoora could answer, another man spoke up, coming from the stairs that Yoora had run down from.

 

“It’s my house,” This newcomer declared.

 

 

 

Both Yoora and Chanyeol turned to look towards the man descending down the stairs. Yoora nodded and Chanyeol instantly had a name to put to this man’s face.

 

“Kyungsoo?” Chanyeol squinted his eyes, afraid he wasn’t seeing right.

 

“Yes, that’s Kyungsoo your boyfriend from high school, remember? I contacted him after those men took you away. I asked him to help and he did. He paid all the 7 billion won off,” Yoora informed.

 

“He what!?” Chanyeol was astonished.

 

Kyungsoo smiled softly as he stood beside the two siblings, “I’m glad to see you’re alright, Chanyeol.”

 

“Y-you bought me out for the 7 billion?” Chanyeol iterated.

 

“I did,” Kyungsoo confirmed.

 

“Thank you so much,” Yoora bowed to Kyungsoo again and again, “I don’t know how we would ever repay you.”

 

“Noona, we don’t have the money to pay him back. The debt is just being tossed from one person to another now. It doesn’t really change anything,” Chanyeol tried to tell Yoora.

 

“That’s partially true,” Kyungsoo explained, “-but I do technically own you now as the contract says. I can show it to you later on. It’s in my office upstairs. But if you continue to stay here and work for me, it’ll be considered like paying your debt off to me so you can be a free man once again.”

 

“Work for you? I don’t get it,” Chanyeol inhaled sharply.

 

“I’ll explain the details to you later on but from today onwards, you’ll be living here with me,” Kyungsoo informed.

 

“It’ll be all alright,” Yoora tried to assure, “You and Kyungsoo go way back and he’ll take care of you. I’m sorry but I had to do it. Knowing what our parents had put you into, I couldn’t just let anyone take you. It’s better with Kyungsoo than someone else. I promise that when I go back to America with my husband, we’ll work hard and find the money to help pay off your debts too.”

 

“No, you don’t have to do that, noona. I’m genuinely trying to help you two,” Kyungsoo assured.

 

“Thank you so much,” Yoora cried, wiping her tears away.

 

 

 

 

Chanyeol held back tears again as he pulled Yoora into a hug, afraid of losing her like he had lost almost everything in his life. Chanyeol didn’t even have a single cent nor a speck of dust to his name anymore.

 

Chanyeol had no choice but he knew Yoora would always act in his best interests. She too was unaware of what their parents were up to until they had recently passed away. She was just trying to make the best out of the situation too.

 

 

 

 

 

Kyungsoo paid off the burly alpha some more money in cash before he went on his way with the driver. Although driverless cars were commonplace, the rich still hired drivers to open and close doors for them and to select the destinations to where the car would be headed.

 

Yoora stayed through the day to be with Chanyeol and left in the evening, promising to call him through Kyungsoo’s phone once she got to the airport.

 

 

 

Then, Chanyeol was left alone in the large house with Kyungsoo. Chanyeol spotted a few people he assumed to be servants but they didn’t really take notice of him except for one who showed him around.

 

Chanyeol was showed to his new room, which was a large one with big windows and a four-poster bed in the middle of it. Chanyeol was shown to the bathroom attached to his room and told that there were some clothes for him in the wardrobe.

 

 

 

 

 

Chanyeol walked around the room, inspecting it, overturning all the pillows and opening the drawers to look inside. He was inquisitive and although he felt a bit safer, he wasn’t yet comfortable and still found it odd how Kyungsoo was involved in all of this.

 

Chanyeol hadn’t seen nor heard from Kyungsoo except in passing for over eight years since he graduated high school.

 

Chanyeol attended private school thanks to the money his parents borrowed, and thus studied alongside rich children from privileged families. Kyungsoo was one of them and Chanyeol knew Kyungsoo’s parents ran the "Do Weapon Industries", a large weapon manufacturing company.

 

 

Kyungsoo and Chanyeol were in the same class for all three years of high school and began dating each other when they both discovered how they liked boys over girls instead. But like almost any high school relationship which was mainly for the experience and wasting time, they broke up before graduation in senior year and then went their separate ways.

 

Therefore, it was peculiar to think of why Kyungsoo would be the one to help Chanyeol, even up to the point of buying him out for such a large amount that would literally take Chanyeol hundreds of years of work to pay off.

 

 

 

 

If Chanyeol was a prized omega who could be bred for children and Kyungsoo was an alpha needing a mate, he’d understand. But that wasn’t the case and the reverse was truer because Chanyeol was an alpha who didn’t desire a mate and Kyungsoo was the omega in this case.

 

Maybe it was because Kyungsoo was the only trustable rich person Yoora could think of to help him? Nonetheless, Chanyeol still thought it was odd.

 

 

 

Kyungsoo was the same age as Chanyeol. At their age, omegas would usually already be mated and have a child or two at least. But when Chanyeol entered the house, he didn’t sense the presence of another alpha marking their territory in the home.

 

It was just a theory but Chanyeol thought that he was supposedly bought off to mate Kyungsoo; when he came across the thought that Kyungsoo was nearing his thirties and most likely still unmated. Maybe, this was the rare case of an alpha being bought for that purpose, even though the reverse was more common.

 

 

 

 

 

 

After a while of being left alone and prancing around while inspecting the room, a servant knocked on the door to inform Chanyeol to come down and have dinner.

 

Chanyeol followed the servant who led him to the dining room on the first floor of the house, which seemed to fit the term of mansion even more.

 

The servant bowed and ushered Chanyeol into the dining room with a smaller looking chandelier hanging from the plastered ceiling and a long table with high chairs that could probably sit up to ten people.

 

 

 

Kyungsoo was already sitting at one of the chairs, talking over his phone with a small stack of papers and files besides his empty plate.

 

 

“Yes, yes, I will finalize the deal once I get the project outlines from you. The dateline is tomorrow and I’m trying to be as efficient as I can, but your side hasn’t been that cooperative. I cannot do this alone,” Kyungsoo spoke calmly over the phone.

 

Chanyeol sat on the chair across from Kyungsoo and simply stared, looking on at Kyungsoo who continued talking over the phone and nodding about some business matters.

At the corner of his eye, Kyungsoo noticed Chanyeol there but he didn’t pay any bother to the latter yet.

 

 

 

When the food was served and laid out on their plates by a servant, while another placed a napkin over their laps, Kyungsoo ended the call and put his phone down beside his plate.

 

“Sorry about that, I had some work to do,” Kyungsoo apologized, picking up a knife.

 

“It’s alright,” Chanyeol brushed it off, trying to force a smile as he mimicked Kyungsoo in picking up a knife.

 

“You must be hungry. Eat up,” Kyungsoo suggested, picking up a bowl of gravy and trying to hand it over to Chanyeol.

 

“I’m fine,” Chanyeol jittered; declining the offer as he awkwardly tried to cut the salmon he was being served.

 

“So, how are you? How do you feel?” Kyungsoo asked, swallowing a mouthful of his food.

 

“I think I’m alright,” Chanyeol honestly answered, based on what he was feeling at the time.

 

“I’m sorry about your parents. You have my condolences,” Kyungsoo expressed.

 

“Thank you,” Chanyeol muttered in reply, forcing himself to swallow a small cut of the fish, feeling the lump in his throat as it traveled down his esophagus.

 

“I can’t imagine how difficult it must have been for you. Rest assured, you will be safe here,” Kyungsoo declared, smiling softly again as he poured more of the sauce onto his plate.

 

Chanyeol paused, looking down at his reflection in the glistening silverware, fork in one hand and a knife in another, “Why did you help me?”

 

“Why not?” Kyungsoo responded, glancing up from his plate towards Chanyeol. 

 

“It’s a lot of money. I will never be able to work off all that debt and I just don’t feel easy knowing that you’d spend that amount of money on me,” Chanyeol confided, “I don’t understand what you’d need me for. I don’t think I’m very useful and I’m an alpha to boot, who aren’t valuable as omegas like you. I don’t have particular skills, talents or job experiences.”

 

“I just wanted to help you but I’ll think of something,” Kyungsoo pondered, “Just rest for a while now. You’ve been through a hard time.”

 

“-but what about you?” Chanyeol questioned. “I haven’t seen or heard from you in a while. How are you doing now?”

 

Kyungsoo paused, freezing with his fork stabbed into the slice of smoked salmon, “I’m…alright. Surviving. I’m working from home, helping to run one of my parent’s subsidiaries.”

 

“Ah, I see,” Chanyeol nodded, before trying to make small talk, “So, you have an alpha mate now?”

“I had one but it’s been years and we broke it off before anything happened between us,” Kyungsoo quickly answered without looking up at Chanyeol.

 

“Alright,” Chanyeol understood, confirming his theory that Kyungsoo was indeed unmated. Chanyeol felt comfortable enough around Kyungsoo to ask, “Did you buy me so I could mate with you? I know you would help me but I’m sure you’d want to be rewarded in return even if a little too.”

 

Kyungsoo froze, gripping tight on his silver knife, as his voice croaked, “No, that’s not the reason I did it. I do admit that I thought about it but it’s not why I bought you out from debt.”

 

“It’s alright,” Chanyeol tried to assure, “I guess it’s normal to have a thought like that. It’s biology, after all. Omegas want to be mated and you’re getting older, and I’m an alpha, so the thought must have come across you at least once.”

 

Kyungsoo dryly chuckled, “I guess that’s true.”

 

“Nonetheless, I’m happy to see you again,” Chanyeol smiled genuinely for once, “I always wondered how you were doing and what you have been up to since we finished high school. I’m happy to know that you are doing well.”

 

Kyungsoo smiled back too and he once again remembered why he fell in love with Chanyeol in the very first place.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chanyeol slept well for the first time since his parents passed away. He was still unused to not having them around and he dreamed of them, only for him to wake up crying, not really sure if time would really heal his wounds.

 

Chanyeol didn’t hate them for leaving for all the debts he had to bear, because he knew they only did so to give him and Yoora a good life. Their only crime was loving their children too much and maybe not knowing how to handle finances properly.

 

 

 

The next day, Chanyeol was given a new phone which he used to call Yoora to tell her that he was well, healthy and alright.

 

Chanyeol was allowed to roam the house and use every room and all the amenities to his heart’s desire. He was even allowed to go out to town if he wanted. All he had to do was ask the driver to take him there, as long as Kyungsoo was informed of where he was going.

 

Chanyeol was a bit too afraid of going out yet, not wanting to run into anyone he knew, because he didn’t feel like being asked too many questions about being dragged away from the funeral in front of probably a hundred of people.

 

 

 

Chanyeol found an AV room with a large home theater system with various gaming consoles connected to it. Chanyeol gawked at the collection of games Kyungsoo had on the shelves. Being rich sure did have its perks, it seemed.

 

It was merely a small bandage to the large wound he had but Chanyeol allowed himself to have a bit of fun and spent a few hours gaming by himself in the room, entering all the virtual realities of the games to immerse himself and temporarily disassociate himself from the world he lived in. 

 

 

Around lunchtime, Chanyeol decided to have a walk and roamed around the house again, looking through rooms and eventually finding Kyungsoo’s office.

 

 

 

 

“Hey,” Kyungsoo smiled, acknowledging Chanyeol’s presence as he continued to talk on the phone yet again with a business partner.

 

“Sorry,” Chanyeol mouthed out, pointing to the door and trying to signify that he was about to leave the room.

 

“No, no it’s fine,” Kyungsoo placed his hand over the phone’s voice input, asking Chanyeol to stay, before continuing the call.

 

 

 

Chanyeol sat on a chair beside the work desk in the home office, where the walls were lined with shelves of books. Chanyeol entertained himself by fiddling with his new phone and looking around the room until Kyungsoo ended the call.

 

Kyungsoo sighed in relief, “That’s done with, finally.”

 

“Sorry, I didn’t know you were busy. I mean- I should’ve known but I didn’t expect you to be in here. I was looking around-” Chanyeol quickly mentioned after the call had ended.

 

“It’s alright. I needed the distraction and an excuse to get away from work,” Kyungsoo smiled back, exposing the dimples in his cheek, “Have you had lunch yet?”

 

“No, not yet,” Chanyeol answered, shaking his head.

 

“Let’s have lunch in the gazebo at the pond outside then. The weather is nice today,” Kyungsoo suggested, his face lighting up as he picked up the desk phone and called the servants down in the kitchen to get them to bring their lunch at the designated place.

 

“Sure,” Chanyeol agreed.

 

 

 

 

Kyungsoo locked his computer and walked around the desk to meet Chanyeol, where he rolled up the sleeves of his sweater to his elbow.

 

It was then that Chanyeol noticed a mark on Kyungsoo’s right forearm. Chanyeol hadn’t noticed it yesterday because Kyungsoo always wore long-sleeved shirts, which Chanyeol understood now why.

 

It was the regular mark that identified a person to their mate when they decided to form such a bond, except that Kyungsoo’s appeared to be burnt like those who had been rejected by their mate and had to live with the pain until they found another mate.

 

Chanyeol had heard of people being rejected by their mates, but he had never seen such a mark in his life. Mates were most often bound to each other for life through thick and thin. Even his parents committing suicide together was a form of their love to each other, unwilling to live if only one of them were alive.

 

So it wasn’t a surprise for Chanyeol to suddenly grab Kyungsoo’s right forearm and scrutinize the mark that appeared burnt and scarred black.

 

 

 

 

“My ex did that to me,” Kyungsoo told Chanyeol, even before Chanyeol could ask. Kyungsoo was seemingly unbothered by it.

 

“The alpha you talked about last night?” Chanyeol gasped, still holding onto Kyungsoo’s arm.

 

“Yeah,” Kyungsoo confirmed, “He broke up with me because he decided that he wanted to be with a female omega instead. I guess he was just after my money in the first place.”

 

“I’m sorry,” Chanyeol felt bad for Kyungsoo, “It must hurt. I heard that when you’re scarred like that, it gets painful.”

 

“It’s been a few years now and it’s my fault anyway. I tried to make him love me when he never did so I just deal with it,” Kyungsoo pulled his arm away from Chanyeol, rolling his sleeve back down on that arm only.

 

“I wish I could help,” Chanyeol’s voice dropped lower, feeling sorry for Kyungsoo and rage pool up in him for this unnamed alpha he didn't even know the name of.

 

“It’s alright,” Kyungsoo playfully punched Chanyeol very softly in the arm, “At least we never decided to have the bond with each other because we ended breaking up too.” Kyungsoo then tugged on Chanyeol by the arm, “Come. We should eat now.”

 

 

 

 

Chanyeol was quiet as he was rendered speechless at what had happened to Kyungsoo in the past years, letting Kyungsoo lead him out the house and down to the gardens where they had lunch in the nice weather which was just right and pleasant.

 

It had been years and sure they were basically young and dumb when they broke up a long time ago, but Chanyeol still felt it in him to protect Kyungsoo, especially now that he knew what exactly had happened to the omega.

 

 

 

 

 

After that, Chanyeol quickly went to the computer and looked up on the internet regarding the side effects of people like Kyungsoo, who had been rejected by a mate whom they had bonded their souls with.

 

Chanyeol found several support forums where these people, who were known as “scarred souls”, came anonymously to discuss their symptoms and how they dealt with it. Most of the people were omegas with an alpha minority.

 

                                                                

 

From their anecdotes, Chanyeol learned that these people suffered bodily pains that felt like fire burning through their blood during an episode. The afflicted area where their mark would be would feel even more painful than the rest of their body.

 

The episodes could happen at any time without warning at an average of a few times a month and would last for hours and up to even a day.

 

In order to deal and manage the pain, these scarred souls would take painkillers, drugs or anything that would keep them sedated until it passed so they didn’t have to deal with the pain. As a result, a lot became dependent on the drugs and had it affect their lives, up to the point of being ostracized from society.

 

 

 

The only way the scarred soul could return to normal was by forming another mating bond with a new partner. But because of how society viewed these scarred souls, it was hard for them to form the bond with another person especially because their souls were unwilling to do it again because of the trauma they experienced.

 

While the whole concept of rejecting a mate was for the purpose of protecting an abused partner against the abusive partner, by rejecting them, it had unfortunately become a way to torture the innocent like Kyungsoo.

 

Knowing all that, Chanyeol only wished he could help out, especially for the man who had literally saved his life from having his organs harvested or forced into a fighting ring until death.

 

 

 

 

 

A few mornings later, Chanyeol came down to the dining room to have breakfast and was quickly served with the food once he had got there.

 

“Aren’t we supposed to wait for Kyungsoo?” Chanyeol asked the butler of the house.

 

“Master Kyungsoo is not coming down to breakfast this morning. He is feeling unwell,” The butler explained.

 

“Is he alright? How is he going to eat?” Chanyeol worried.

 

“We’ll send his food up very soon, rest assured, so please have your breakfast. I’m sure he appreciates your concern,” The butler said, pouring coffee for Chanyeol.

 

“He’s in his room right now?” Chanyeol questioned, already suspecting what was going with Kyungsoo.

 

“He is, please have your meal, sir Chanyeol,” The butler continued to persuade Chanyeol.

 

“Where is his breakfast?” Chanyeol proceeded to ask.

 

“It’s on the way to his room. Another servant is sending it up as we speak,” The butler informed.

 

“Alright, then. I’m eating with him then,” Chanyeol asserted, taking his plate and cup of coffee away from him as he left the dining room and strutted all the way up to Kyungsoo’s room, which was quite a walks away because of the sheer size of the house. 

 

The butler only sighed, defeated, and cleared up the table.

 

 

 

 

 

Chanyeol barged into Kyungsoo’s room, pushing the door open with his bottom, announcing, “Kyungsoo, I’m coming in.”

 

Chanyeol knew where Kyungsoo’s room was because it was just beside the home office Kyungsoo worked in, even if it was Chanyeol’s first time going in there since he moved in.

 

 

 

Kyungsoo was sitting up on his four-poster bed with his back supported up with pillows and blankets up to his waist. There was also a bed tray beside him with a similar looking breakfast like Chanyeol's- on it. Kyungsoo was rather pale and looked very obviously tired.

 

Kyungsoo exhaled once he saw Chanyeol come in and sit on the edge bed with him, putting his own cup down on the tray while he continued holding his plate up and forked through the egg on it.

 

 

 

“You only said you were coming once you were already pushing through my door and making your way in,” Kyungsoo pointed out, smiling to himself.

 

“Sorry. I just had to check up on how you were doing when the butler said you weren’t feeling well this morning. I was worried,” Chanyeol expressed.

 

“-because I’m a scarred soul?” Kyungsoo raised an eyebrow, tiredly picking up a toast from his plate but not feeling well enough to even lift it up to his mouth to eat.

 

“Yeah,” Chanyeol admitted, “-are you having one of those episodes?”

 

“It’s over now. It was last night but I’m alright now. I just feel very tired after that because I couldn’t sleep the entire night. I’m used to it now,” Kyungsoo’s hand remained holding the toast but still on the plate, it came from.

 

“That still sounds so wrong,” Chanyeol voiced out his opinion, “I can’t believe he’d do that to you.”

 

“I told you it’s my fault,” Kyungsoo weakly told Chanyeol, “I was the one who insisted we had the mating bond because I wanted to tie him down so we’d be together and have children one day. I was so desperate to be loved and wanted, so much that I didn’t realize that he was only after my money. So when he found someone better suited for him, he left, of course.”

 

“Does it still hurt now?” Chanyeol eyed Kyungsoo’s limp hand.

 

“A bit,” Kyungsoo replied.

 

“Here, let me help,” Chanyeol offered, pulling the slice of toast sandwich from Kyungsoo’s weak grip.

 

 

 

 

Chanyeol cupped a hand under Kyungsoo’s chin and moved the toast close to the omega’s mouth. Kyungsoo took the cue and opened his mouth up to allow Chanyeol to feed him.

 

Kyungsoo chewed slowly, staring ahead at blank space and occasionally at Chanyeol before swallowing the lump down his throat. Chanyeol repeated his actions of bringing the toast close to Kyungsoo’s lips again.

 

 

 

“I know you feel indebted to me,” Kyungsoo uttered, “-but I just wanted to help you out, so you don’t have to do this for me.”

 

“You’ve said that to me several times now. I’m aware of it but like you helped me, I want to do something for you too,” Chanyeol made it known.

 

“I don’t want to trouble you,” Kyungsoo sounded like he was almost whining.

 

“You’re not troubling me, probably not more than I have troubled you since you had to bail me out,” Chanyeol responded.

 

“I have a lot of money, Chanyeol. That amount I paid to buy you wasn’t even a dent in my account,” Kyungsoo exclaimed, more lethargic as ever.

 

“I get it,” Chanyeol bit into his own toast before trying to feed Kyungsoo again, “-this happens often to you, doesn’t it? The pain of the episodes from ‘that’.”

 

Kyungsoo shrugged, “-kinda.”

“Is that why you live alone so far away from everyone else and work from home?” Chanyeol pried into.

 

“Yes, I don’t want to be an inconvenience and I’m afraid of how people will react to it so I just stay here with my servants,” Kyungsoo answered.

 

“Do your parents know about this?” Chanyeol asked before taking a sip of his coffee.

 

“They do. They just don’t say anything about it,” Kyungsoo relayed.

 

 

 

As Chanyeol was feeding Kyungsoo a forkful of the scrambled eggs, Chanyeol callously asked, “What about your heats? How do you deal with it with no alpha mate?”

 

Kyungsoo almost choked on the eggs but managed to swallow it all down as Chanyeol worriedly rubbed his back.

 

“I just wait for it to pass too like the episodes,” Kyungsoo breathed.

 

“What if it happens simultaneously?” Chanyeol was eager to know for some reason.

 

“I just tell myself I deserve it for what I’ve done,” Kyungsoo sighed.

 

“-but all you did was wanted to be loved,” Chanyeol stated, “That isn’t wrong, at all.”

 

“It was wrong when I forced someone into making the bond with me when they clearly didn’t feel that way,” Kyungsoo smiled sadly, “It’s alright, Chanyeol. I appreciate your concern very much. It’s been a while since someone cared for me that much especially when you have your own thing to deal with, whatnot with your parent’s suicide and the whole debt thing.”

 

 

 

 

Chanyeol stilled, sighed and looked down towards the sheets beneath him with a fistful of the fabric in his grasp.

 

Chanyeol hung his head down and blinked, only to find tears forming at his eyes and falling down onto the sheets below him, at the reminder that his parents were now forever gone.

 

 

“I’m so sorry,” Kyungsoo repeated, weakly stretching his arms out to hug Chanyeol.

 

Chanyeol rested his head on Kyungsoo’s shoulder as he sobbed, “It’s so hard and I miss them so much.”

 

“You’re doing just great, Chanyeol,” Kyungsoo patted Chanyeol on the back despite feeling too tired to even do that.

 

“I didn’t do anything,” Chanyeol denied, shaking his head, burying his face into Kyungsoo’s shoulder and wetting the shirt with his tears.

 

“You’re moving on, Chanyeol and being strong now despite the poor hand you were dealt with. I’m proud of you, very proud of you,” Kyungsoo affirmed, holding Chanyeol close to his person, wanting Chanyeol to feel secure and not alone in such a time of need.

 

 

 

 

Kyungsoo went back to sleep after breakfast because he hadn’t slept at all the previous night, with Chanyeol joining him from the emotional exhaustion that somehow made him tired too.

 

Chanyeol didn’t want to be alone indeed and hugged Kyungsoo while they were asleep, staying that way, safe and warm in each other’s arms until they woke up again when it was late afternoon.

 

 

 

It wasn’t much but for two broken people, it was a small consolation to what they were going through.

 

Later that night, Chanyeol called Yoora again to give her an update of how things had been going and he was pleased to know that she was doing alright too. They were indeed now moving on with their lives after such a tragedy they felt partially guilty for.

 

 


	2. 2/4

 

The next few days passed without incident and Kyungsoo was back to his usual self. He surely wasn’t undermining it when he said how he was used to being in pain and dealing with the episodes. Kyungsoo was so used to it at this point, up to a point where it was just a regular nuisance for him to deal with until it passed.

Chanyeol still didn’t think it was right to be “used” to such a thing. It just felt wrong to him.

 

 

 

That day, Kyungsoo asked Chanyeol to come out to town with him. Kyungsoo had to meet some of his business partners while asking Chanyeol to come along so he could go shopping and get things he needed outside.

Since Chanyeol had arrived, he had probably been wearing the few pairs of clothes that were given to him when he first arrived. He had almost no personal belongings but a pair of shoes and the new phone he was gifted because all his possessions had been sold off to the people his parents owed money to.

Kyungsoo lent Chanyeol his credit card and dropped him off at a mall with one of the servants while he went off to meet his business partners. Kyungsoo told Chanyeol that’d he come around in about two hours to pick him up.

 

 

Chanyeol and the servants parted ways at the mall because the servant was more interested in getting household supplies while Chanyeol was more interested in getting new clothes or sneakers.

Chanyeol quickly bought a hoodie and wore it with the hood up, not wanting anyone to notice him because he was still trying to avoid people.

It was nice to finally have something he could say he owned, even if it was small material things that weren’t worth much. Bu especially after what he had been through, Chanyeol began to hold a much more important value in little things.

 

Chanyeol also had some loose cash on him, which Kyungsoo gave him. Almost everything he owned now was given to him by Kyungsoo. Then again, Kyungsoo literally owned him on paper.

The thought did leave Chanyeol feeling a bit uneasy and unsure of himself, feeling like he was a piece of property to be used and ordered around as Kyungsoo pleased. Chanyeol no longer had the rights to free will, not since his parents had signed him off a long time ago without his knowledge.

But Chanyeol was comforted in the thought, that it was better Kyungsoo than someone else, who would have used him for goodness knew what.

 

 

 

Chanyeol sat on a bench in the middle of the mall beside some claw machines stuffed with plush toys, which were constantly jingling out an electronic 8-bit tune.

Chanyeol was waiting for the servant who just texted him that he’d take some more time to get things for the house.

While Chanyeol was waiting, he reached his hands into his new jeans’ pockets and felt around for the loose cash which Kyungsoo had given him as spare change. Chanyeol looked at the money and then at the claw machine ahead of him, noticing a penguin plush toy that was near to the hole to drop the toy through in order to win it.

 

The penguin plush toy reminded him of Kyungsoo and he quickly got up to attempt to win it because it seemed like an easy task to do.

After quite a plenty of failed rounds, which attracted the attention of a child who was excitedly seeing some adult have a go at it, Chanyeol finally managed to get the penguin and quickly ran away with it to where the car was supposed to wait for him at.

 

 

 

Chanyeol saw the car parked at the curb beside a coffee shop. From the other side of the street, Chanyeol was about to cross when he stopped to see Kyungsoo and a middle-aged man whom Chanyeol did not recognize, walking out the coffee shop with Kyungsoo.

Although Chanyeol didn’t know who that older man was, he appeared to be dominant and assertive like a stereotypical alpha would be. He also dressed in expensive suits and Chanyeol just felt off about the whole getup, like the same way he felt about the men barging into his parent’s funeral.

 

The man bade goodbye to Kyungsoo before leaving. Kyungsoo bowed in return and then waved at Chanyeol from across the street, indicating that Kyungsoo was aware that Chanyeol had been standing there the entire time.

Chanyeol crossed the empty street to meet Kyungsoo with the penguin tucked into one of the shopping bags.

The driver alighted from the car to help Chanyeol put the shopping bags into the back of the trunk. Chanyeol took the penguin plush toy out of the shopping bags to give to Kyungsoo when they had entered the car and sat on the rear seats.

They were now just waiting for the servant to come back from shopping.

 

 

“Here, this is for you. I saw it and thought of you,” Chanyeol grinned, happily, handing Kyungsoo the stuffed penguin.

It was small, no bigger than Kyungsoo’s stretched palm. Kyungsoo chuckled and smiled wide when he received it, “Wow, I’m flattered. Thank you. Where did you buy it?”

“Oh, I actually got it from the claw machine,” Chanyeol answered, making a clawing motion with his hand.

“So you won it for me,” Kyungsoo muttered, running his thumb on the face of the penguin.

“I did,” Chanyeol boasted, omitting the fact where it had taken him a plenty time of failed tries to get it.

“Thank you,” Kyungsoo repeated, kissing the plush penguin on its slightly protruding soft beak.

Chanyeol couldn’t help but smile too, happy to see Kyungsoo in such a joyous state too. There was nothing more which he wanted now, other than to see Kyungsoo happy again.

 

 

 

 

Later at dinner, they were talking and laughing over the food and drinks, discussing some funny moments from the past and old inside jokes all the way from high school.

While Chanyeol was cracking the jokes and Kyungsoo was trying to withhold his laughter from being too loud and obnoxious, Chanyeol suddenly remembered what he saw that afternoon.

It was most probably the amount of wine he drank and the amount he ingested from the meat which had been soaked in it because Chanyeol’s inhibition was lowered; enough for him to ask what Kyungsoo had been up to that afternoon when he had decided to leave out that detail earlier on.

 

“So, who was it that you met up with this afternoon?” Chanyeol asked, coming down from another fit of laughter as he took another sip of wine from the glass.

“He’s just a business partner,” Kyungsoo answered, looking to the table, pressing his lips together after.

“What is it you do again? You said you run your parent’s subsidiary. Does it have something with weapon designs and manufacturing too?” Chanyeol inquired, pressing the rim of the glass up close to his lips, where his breath formed mist on the surface.

“It’s more like private financing. My older brother gets the weapon manufacturing business and my parents set this small firm up for me. There’s an office for it in the same building my parents own in downtown Seoul but because it’s easier for me, I just work from home,” Kyungsoo replied, cutting a piece of the meat on his plate without turning to look up at Chanyeol.

“Wow, that’s nice and thoughtful of them,” Chanyeol praised, putting down the wine glass back onto the coaster once he had taken another sip, “-you know, I actually have two degrees in accounting and finance. One of it is a professional degree too, but I never worked in the field after that.”

“So I’ve heard. It was in the file the man who sold you gave to me when I approached him to make the purchase, after Yoora told me to help you out,” Kyungsoo looked up to meet Chanyeol’s eyes from the other side of the table, with his knife and fork in either hand still halfway through cutting the meat.

“It’s funny isn’t it,” Chanyeol chuckled, “Who thought that I’d study such a thing and actually have two degrees in it. I wasn’t interested in it all. I just wanted my parents to support me through school as they did. Now that I know where all that money they used on me went to, I should’ve just gotten a job like everyone else.”

“It’s alright,” Kyungsoo assured, “You’re still here now so it means you’ve been given a chance and an opportunity to change things around. I’m sure there’s something you could do. I’ll call a manager tomorrow and ask him if there’s something you can do. If it’s so, I’ll hire you.”

“Oh my god, really?” Chanyeol gasped, almost jumping in his seat, “You’d do that for me?”

“Well, I do own the company so I do have a say in it,” Kyungsoo was excited but his physical reaction didn’t quite reflect it.

“This is great! You literally saved my life over and over now. I don’t know if I could ever repay you for everything,” Chanyeol reached over the table to hold Kyungsoo’s hand, smiling fondly at Kyungsoo.

Kyungsoo chuckled a little, feeling a bit shy from the praise he wasn’t used to getting, “You know I’d do anything for you.”

 

Chanyeol would soon learn how the extent of Kyungsoo’s love went for him. For it was unconditional, limitless, without end and not even the world could stand in the way of it.

 

 

 

After dinner, Chanyeol wanted to ask Kyungsoo to play a game with him in the AV room, but Kyungsoo quickly excused himself to bed saying he had other things to tend to.

Chanyeol was too tipsy, uninhibited and boisterous from the alcohol to notice that Kyungsoo had been acting queasy and slightly avoidant at dinner earlier on.

 

Unaware of that fact, Chanyeol went off ahead to the AV room by himself to play a virtual reality simulator game that left him feeling nauseous and giddy because of the landscape orientation and the character’s point of view that was constantly moving around in 360 degrees

Halfway through and not even after completing a small side quest in the game; Chanyeol gave up on it and sat on the couch in the AV room for a while to calm his insides down, which were threatening to be expelled out as vomit anytime soon.

Chanyeol practiced taking deep breaths as he flicked on the television with a remote, turning on a news channel that was reporting on worldwide news about the raging civil war in a country named Antitra, on another continent far away. After the Antitra war coverage, there were more reports in different countries about protests demanding equality which turned into violent riots with the uniformed force killing the civilians.

 

 

 

It was too late at night, Chanyeol was sobering up and the news was too depressing for his mood and taste. Chanyeol turned off the TV and left the AV room which also served as the home theater.

Chanyeol headed out the AV room and down the corridor to make it back to his room, even though he wasn’t the least bit tired or ready for sleep yet.

 

On his way back to his room, Chanyeol had to pass by Kyungsoo’s office and then Kyungsoo’s room just adjacent to it. Chanyeol’s room was another three rooms down the corridor from there.

After passing by Kyungsoo’s office down the corridor, where the lights had been dimmed down at this time of the night, Chanyeol then passed by Kyungsoo’s room where he heard muffled sounds which were initially hard to make out.

Chanyeol paused and stopped to listen when he realized that Kyungsoo was making breathy, throaty sounds that occasionally sounded strangled and in pain.

 

 

 

Concerned and worried that Kyungsoo was having another episode; Chanyeol barged into Kyungsoo’s room without sparing another thought, knowing that Kyungsoo’s room was never locked.

The room was dark but the large windows across from the bed had its curtains drawn open, spilling moonlight and some light from outside into the room, reflecting and glistening on Kyungsoo’s naked form writhing on the bed.

 

Chanyeol didn’t expect to see what he saw, because what he witnessed was Kyungsoo bare naked on the messy bed, thrusting into his right hand wrapped around the base of his erect cock, as the thrusts of his hip met the stroking movements of his hand.

Kyungsoo’s thighs were spread open on the bed with his knees raised, the heel of his feet digging into the messy unmade sheets. Kyungsoo was biting onto something in his mouth but it was too dark for Chanyeol to make out what it was, and what Kyungsoo was doing with his left hand between his thighs.

 

 

Everyone masturbated and that wasn’t the shocking part. The shocking part was that Chanyeol just didn’t expect to barge in on such a scene.

Chanyeol gasped, cupping his hands over his mouth and attempted to back away, only for Kyungsoo to stir and notice that he had come inside.

 

Kyungsoo yelped, bolting upright and removing the thing from his mouth which Chanyeol now noticed to be the same plush penguin toy he had given Kyungsoo earlier that day.

Kyungsoo’s right hand flew off his dick and the three fingers on his left hand which were knuckles deep in his ass were also removed from there instantly.

 

 

“I’m so sorry. I’ll go now. I won’t speak of this,” Chanyeol tried to contain the situation, not wanting to embarrass Kyungsoo even more. Chanyeol turned on his heel and was about to leave the room. His hand was already on the door when Kyungsoo called out for him.

“Wait, stop,” Kyungsoo breathily spoke, swinging his legs over the edge of the bed with an erect cock still standing between his legs.

“Y-yeah?” Chanyeol stopped in his tracks, turning around to timidly look at Kyungsoo, hoping that Kyungsoo wasn’t about to kick him out to the streets for this.

When Chanyeol turned around to look, Kyungsoo instead spread his legs wider, exposing his hard cock dripping precum and his slick hole wet with natural lubrication.

The light from the windows and from outside the room, aided by the fact that Chanyeol’s eyes had adjusted to the dark, helped him to see all of this clearer now.

“Chanyeol, please. Can you help breed me?” Kyungsoo pleaded, with a voice filled with lust and want.

 

 

Now that it was all coming to him, Chanyeol was hit by a sudden whiff of Kyungsoo’s scent. Kyungsoo was on heat and signaling to be mated by an alpha.

It was an evolutionary trait for scents to be masked until the other party was mentally and physically aware of what was in front of them.

An omega in heat could go around without anyone knowing they were in that phase unless the other person was told or shown of it. Only then, would they be able to detect the particular’s omega scent.

And when it was made known, that was when the alpha’s rut began.

 

 

 

When Chanyeol first smelled it again after such a long time since the last time he did, it was like being suddenly hit by a jolt of electricity that ran down his spine and pooled up in his lower regions as he felt himself getting aroused, bothered and hard.

It was almost crazy to what Kyungsoo did to him. Chanyeol had not had sex with anyone since the few omegas he fucked back in college. Even while they were on heat and presented themselves to him, the feeling still didn’t come close to this.

 

All the blood in his brain was probably going down to the bulge forming in his pants now, but Chanyeol still had his sense of control and rationality to tell himself that Kyungsoo was just on heat and that their relationship was not on that path yet.

It got harder when Kyungsoo got up from the bed and strutted over to where Chanyeol was, pressing his naked body against Chanyeol’s taller form, caressing Chanyeol’s chest above his shirt.

Kyungsoo was literally breathing down Chanyeol’s neck, moaning and grinding his hard cock against Chanyeol’s thigh.

 

“Please, Chanyeol. Fill me up. I want your hard cock,” Kyungsoo sighed softly, moving his hand down Chanyeol’s chest and to the waistband of his pants.

“No,” Chanyeol mustered with all his strength, gently shoving Kyungsoo off of him by the shoulders, removing Kyungsoo’s hands from his pants, “When your heat is over, you’ll regret this and I don’t want to help you with that. We aren’t together anymore- or yet. I don’t want to hurt you.”

Kyungsoo whined, pouting his lips, his eyes glazed and unfocused because of the heat.

Chanyeol gasped, still holding Kyungsoo still an arm’s length away from himself. Chanyeol looked down to the growing bulge on his pants, innately cursing himself for being turned on in such a situation.

He could blame biology for it but protecting Kyungsoo from being hurt was the main point here. Kyungsoo still suffered from the effects of his past relationship and Chanyeol didn’t want to do something both he and Kyungsoo would regret later on.

It didn’t help that Chanyeol’s cock was practically begging to be inside Kyungsoo, knotting the omega and breeding him like the strong scent was enticing him to do.

 

 

There would be no end of this and Kyungsoo’s heat could last for a few more days even, if left untended to. Chanyeol knew this too well and decided to help Kyungsoo out, hoping it would help him in return too when the heat ended and he wasn’t suspected to the scent anymore.

Chanyeol pulled Kyungsoo back down onto the bed, pushing him to lie back down.

Instinctively, Kyungsoo just did so and spread his legs wide, exposing himself to Chanyeol.

 

 

Chanyeol climbed onto the bed, pushing Kyungsoo’s knees apart even further as he settled between them.

With a slight hesitation and a sharp inhale of breath, Chanyeol wrapped his hand around Kyungsoo’s cock, swiping his thumb over the slit where slick was being produced and pooling from.

With the natural slick Kyungsoo was producing, Chanyeol took over what Kyungsoo had been doing to himself earlier on.  Chanyeol helped jerk off Kyungsoo, focusing on Kyungsoo’s pleasure to ignore the fact that he probably needed the same too.

 

“Chanyeol, ah,” Kyungsoo gasped, thrusting into Chanyeol’s fist, wrapped around his cock.

Just then, Chanyeol slid his middle finger into Kyungsoo’s slick entrance before quickly adding a second and third finger.

“Yes,” Kyungsoo moaned, his eyes rolling to the back of his head as he felt the sensation of being stretched open and filled up by fingers that weren’t his own for once. It wasn’t a knot but it would do for now.

 

 

While keeping up with rubbing Kyungsoo off, Chanyeol fingered Kyungsoo, twisting his wrists as he pulled out before thrusting his digits back in.

This was harder than anything Chanyeol would have thought. The urge to just unzip his pants and let his cock spring free to plunge into that tight wet heat was stronger than ever. Especially when Kyungsoo was flushed, naked and literally spread out in front of him, literally begging to be taken.

But the thought of getting Kyungsoo pregnant when the both of them basically still had a lot on their plates to deal with and their inability to raise a child yet scared Chanyeol off even more from falling into temptation despite how turned on he was.

 

Kyungsoo reached for the penguin plush toy he had put aside and brought it back to his face, pressing it against his nose as he inhaled and panted at the smell of it.

Chanyeol understood why now. He had tucked it under his arm and in his jacket when he got it, causing his own alpha pheromone scent to rub off on it.

Kyungsoo had kissed the toy and had it close to him while in bed, exposing him to Chanyeol’s alpha scent.

Chanyeol thought that maybe he could have been the catalyst that triggered Kyungsoo’s heat, or it was just bad timing when Kyungsoo was already naturally going into heat at the time.

 

 

But when the real deal was in front of him and Kyungsoo quickly realized it, despite his brain being in a drunken haze of wanting nothing but to be filled by a big alpha cock, he put the toy aside and sat up on the bed in front of Chanyeol.

Chanyeol’s fingers slipped out of Kyungsoo’s hole and his hand off of Kyungsoo’s dick.

Kyungsoo crawled up to Chanyeol and straddled the alpha’s fully clothed legs, sitting himself down on Chanyeol’s lap.

Kyungsoo pressed his face to Chanyeol’s neck where he inhaled, sighed and nuzzled his face there to keep the strong alpha scent in his way at all time. Kyungsoo clung onto Chanyeol’s shoulders, pushing his ass out behind him.

 

Chanyeol groaned, feeling Kyungsoo’s weight pressing down against his clothed but hard cock. Kyungsoo could feel the bulge beneath him and ground against it, moving his hips in circles and laterally as his face was pressed against Chanyeol’s neck while holding onto the alpha’s shoulders.

Chanyeol could feel his own pre-cum wetting the front of his pants as Kyungsoo ground down on him. Chanyeol leaned his head against Kyungsoo tucked near his neck and traced his three wet fingers down Kyungsoo’s back, all the way down to the crack of Kyungsoo’s ass to find the wet hole again.

Kyungsoo moaned when he felt the fingers prodding his entrance and when Chanyeol penetrated all three digits inside at one go, Kyungsoo jolted up in a half-strangled cry.

Kyungsoo was far gone now as he ground down on Chanyeol and back at the fingers two knuckles deep within him.

 

 

Kyungsoo was loud and almost deafening in Chanyeol’s ear as he felt his orgasm approaching close. Kyungsoo was bouncing up and back erratically, causing Chanyeol’s fingering rhythm to go awry too.

Chanyeol reached a free hand out to old Kyungsoo’s head in place against his neck and shoulders, growling, “Keep still.”

Kyungsoo sobbed out a nod and Chanyeol drove his fingers back in, thrusting in and out with squelching sounds from how wet Kyungsoo was down there.

They were both breathing wildly against each other’s chests and Chanyeol was giving his all to stop himself from just unzipping his own pants and replacing the fingers with his own cock.

Kyungsoo began to moan louder again and his hips were trembling, as his grip on Chanyeol’s shoulder grew harder. It was as if Kyungsoo was shivering but he was the furthest from being cold at that point.

Kyungsoo tensed up and froze when his orgasm ripped through him, screaming out Chanyeol’s name. Chanyeol felt Kyungsoo’s muscles clenching around his fingers, sucking him into the tight heat as Kyungsoo came, spilling white onto Chanyeol’s shirt.

 

 

When Chanyeol felt Kyungsoo finally relaxing and less tense around his fingers, he removed the digits and wiped it off on his already dirtied shirt.

Kyungsoo was breathing heavily but steadily, limp and still pressed up against Chanyeol’s chest.

Chanyeol shifted and while still cradling Kyungsoo, he moved further up the bed before laying Kyungsoo gently down on the pillow.

 

Kyungsoo’s eyes were lidded and heavy as he laid down on his back on the bed, tired and breathless, gazing up at Chanyeol. Kyungsoo was quiet, coming down from his high and his heat finally settling down with the scent of it slowly fading away by the second.

“Wait here,” Chanyeol instructed, getting off the bed and unbuttoning his shirt. He had just gotten it that day but it was already soiled with cum and slick and in need of a washing.

 

 

Chanyeol headed off to the bathroom in Kyungsoo’s room, where he pulled a few tissues out from the dispenser. The tiles on the floor were cool on his feet, a contrast from how hot and sweaty he had been in that position with Kyungsoo.

As Chanyeol ran the tap water and was damping up the tissues, he looked down his naked and equally flushed chest to see the throbbing bulge still persistent in his pants. He’d have to deal with soon because there was nothing worse than being blueballed from it.

 

Chanyeol returned to the room and the bed where Kyungsoo was now asleep and helped wipe him off with the wet tissues.

Sitting on the edge of the bed, Chanyeol groaned, pressing his head to his hands as he finally realized what he had done.

Sure, they had sex before like a couple of horny teenagers who thought they were in love but not now that they were adults who haven’t actually made enough progress yet to be at that point. Especially after the kind of bad relationship Kyungsoo had been through, Chanyeol didn’t want to be the person to just add new wounds onto an already broken man.

Nonetheless, Chanyeol decided he’d accept the responsibility and any potential repercussion of his actions.

 

 

Chanyeol went back to the toilet to relieve himself, jerking off on the toilet seat with his eyes open because whenever he closed his eyes, all he could see was the image of Kyungsoo just wanting to be fucked so bad by him.

When Chanyeol finally came onto his own hand, he blinked his dry eyes at the white cum stains on his palm, feeling abhorrently guilty and wrong for some reason.

 

After that, Chanyeol washed up and crept back into bed with Kyungsoo, not wanting to be alone or leaving Kyungsoo alone.

Spooning from behind, Chanyeol placed the plush penguin toy close to Kyungsoo’s bare chest as he draped a blanket over their bodies and went to sleep.

Despite everything that happened that night, they slept well and peacefully throughout the night until the next morning.

 

 

 

 

The following morning at breakfast, Kyungsoo couldn’t look up from his plate to Chanyeol across the table from him, but sitting a bit towards the side and not center-front like he usually did.

They spoke only a few words which were all small talk and Chanyeol was afraid that Kyungsoo was mad at him for what happened.

 

Kyungsoo sure as hell remembered and was aware of what had conspired between the both of them the previous night, even though his body’s physiological reaction of being on heat had gotten the more of him.

Chanyeol wondered if he had committed a crime and whether he should be turning himself to the police.

Despite the tense situation, neither of them wanted to walk out and just leave to avoid the situation because none of them knew how the other exactly felt about the whole thing.

Kyungsoo was just embarrassed and thought he was being a burden. Chanyeol thought that Kyungsoo hated him now. And neither of that thought was actually true.

 

 

The awkwardness was fortunately abruptly ended when Kyungsoo’s phone rang at the breakfast table and he had to excuse himself to get it because it was an important work call.

Chanyeol was used to that now and it happened quite a few times already, where Kyungsoo had to leave in the middle of something to tend to a business matter over the phone. Kyungsoo was a busy, hardworking man and Chanyeol was rather proud of him.

 

 

Kyungsoo did end up taking a while and after some time, the servant came around to the breakfast table to tell him that Kyungsoo would not be coming back to eat and that Chanyeol could just go ahead and finish breakfast by himself.

Chanyeol saw the servant removing Kyungsoo’s half-eaten plate as he dug into his own, finishing the rest of his meal off before he returned to his room.

 

 

 

On the way back to his room again, Chanyeol saw Kyungsoo standing in the corridor outside the rooms, pacing up and down on the carpeted floor as he continued to talk on the phone with a business partner.

Kyungsoo saw Chanyeol coming and motioned him with a hand to wait there. Chanyeol nodded and simply did as he was told until Kyungsoo ended the call a few minutes later.

 

“I just got off the phone with the manager,” Kyungsoo notified, tucking his phone back into the pocket of his pants, “He says that you’re hired and you can help me work from home as my assistant. You can start tomorrow. Your job scope will be dealing with accounts, bills and stuff like that. I’m pretty sure you can do it based on what you studied.”

“That’s great! I’m looking forward to it!” Chanyeol gushed, excited, “Thank you so much. I finally have my first job. Yes!”

“Yeah, we’ll discuss the terms like your pay and you can sign the employment agreement tomorrow,” Kyungsoo informed, smiling behind his thick glasses.

 

 

Chanyeol was ready to say something else when he suddenly remembered that there was supposed to be an awkward rift between them, which hadn’t been resolved yet. It was as if Kyungsoo was too suddenly reminded of it too, and his face dropped too, trying hard to not visibly fidget around uncomfortably.

Meekly, Chanyeol reached with a hand to rub the back of his neck as he brought it up, “So umm…about last night?”

“I want to apologize for last night,” Kyungsoo quickly stepped forward, standing right in front of Chanyeol, tilting his head up to come eye-to-eye because of their height difference, “I put you in such an uncomfortable situation. I shouldn’t have done that and I am really sorry.”

Kyungsoo then took a few more steps back so he could bow his head to Chanyeol as a form of his apology.

“You don’t have to apologize,” Chanyeol assured, a bit timid himself, “It’s fine.”

“-but I inconvenienced you!” Kyungsoo exclaimed.

“Not really. I didn’t expect it so it was surprising but the only thing you probably did was delay my bedtime by an hour or so. I don’t really mind. You shouldn’t feel sorry or ashamed for something like that,” Chanyeol expressed.

Kyungsoo sighed in relief, “Thank goodness. I really thought I was being difficult. I don’t want to be a hassle and a burden to you.”

“You’re not, Kyungsoo. I don’t know who planted all those ideas into your head but that isn’t true. You have been nothing but helpful to me since I got here and even to bail me out from being a victim of human trafficking,” Chanyeol was grateful, “You’ve done so much for me, that I could never ever repay you even with my life.”

Chanyeol moved in to hug Kyungsoo, embracing the omega in a tight assuring hug that made the both of them feel secure and safe at the moment.

“I’m happy that we’re good now,” Kyungsoo smiled, pressing his face on Chanyeol’s shoulders and wrapping his hands on Chanyeol’s back.

“I am too. I thought that you hate me now but I’m really glad to know that’s not the case,” Chanyeol chuckled, with arms wrapped around Kyungsoo’s waist.

“I would never do that,” Kyungsoo declared, “I can be anything but I would never hate you.”

Chanyeol felt so much better already.

 

 

 

 

The next morning, Chanyeol saw a furniture shop truck outside the house. Kyungsoo had ordered an office table, chair and a whole new office set-up for Chanyeol the previous day, which would be fixed right beside Kyungsoo in the home office.

After everything was put in place and the movers had left, Chanyeol settled in his new home office setup right next to Kyungsoo.

Chanyeol had a smile permanently plastered on his face throughout the entire day, and he was gushing, going all about being excited at everything. His life was just beginning to turn around for the better and Chanyeol was more than happy to see how it would play along.

 

 

Kyungsoo printed the official letter and terms of employment, which the manager in the main office had e-mailed to him. After reading and having a run through it again, Kyungsoo walked over to Chanyeol’s desk to hand him the letter.

Kyungsoo approached Chanyeol at his desk from behind the alpha’s seat, leaning over the chair to hand Chanyeol the document over the latter’s shoulder.

At the same time, Chanyeol who was sitting on his new chair looked up at Kyungsoo hovering above him.

Their eyes met and their faces were so close to each other. They both noticed this but neither of them pulled away, secretly enjoying the closeness they had in proximity with each other.

 

 

Like a jerk reaction, Chanyeol’s arm flew up to grab onto Kyungsoo’s own, who was just trying to put the papers on his desk.

It was tantalizing as their similarly dark-colored eyes met each other, under the intense gaze and silence that befell them.

“Kyungsoo…” Chanyeol said, almost breathing out the omega’s name.

Kyungsoo began to worry that his heat wasn’t really over. Although he felt fine, he was afraid of sending Chanyeol into a rut again.

“Um…,” Kyungsoo hummed, thinking of what to say, “-just read through and sign the papers. If there’s anything you want to bring up before that, please let me know immediately.”

 

 

Kyungsoo pulled away, removing his arm which was coming from behind and over Chanyeol’s shoulders, his fingers just lightly brushing Chanyeol’s bare nape while he did so.

Chanyeol silently gasped. It was probably by accident and unintentional, but it felt as if Kyungsoo was teasing him on purpose.

Chanyeol saw Kyungsoo smile at him from the corner of his eye before returning to his own desk, just right beside him.

 

Chanyeol signed the papers that day too and was officially employed as Kyungsoo’s finance assistant, where he worked to sort out bills, payments and manage the check and balance. Finally, Chanyeol felt somewhat useful and like he was actually contributing to something for the first time in his life.

 

 

 

The first few days, Kyungsoo walked him through what to do in order to give Chanyeol the practical knowledge and skills he rather lacked. Kyungsoo guided and taught Chanyeol what was needed to be.

Chanyeol caught up very fast and soon enough, he could do all the work given to him with minimal guidance, although Kyungsoo was always ready and there to help him if needed.

Because no matter how busy Kyungsoo was, he never failed to spare some time when Chanyeol was concerned.

 

When Chanyeol got his first paycheck, he tried giving half of it away to Kyungsoo and the other half to Yoora, but they both turned it down.

Although they didn’t think that Chanyeol owed them anything, Chanyeol still believed that he did because he felt like he had gotten out of his situation too easily.

Chanyeol thought that he was lucky but it didn’t change the fact that he had an incessant fear lurking in the back of his head, telling him that his time to repay his dues just weren’t here yet. And if would be something big and terrible when it came around.

For now, Chanyeol remained deluded in this temporary happiness he had achieved- or rather gained. It wasn’t a crime to be happy, he thought.

 

 

 

 

On some days, Kyungsoo wasn’t able to work because he was suffering the pain from his episodes. Chanyeol knew this was the case when Kyungsoo didn’t come down for breakfast, and the servants only laid out a dish for one person instead of two.

When this happened, Chanyeol would bring his plate and drink up to Kyungsoo’s room, so they could eat and spend time together.

Most of the times, Kyungsoo was too weak to even feed or chew his own food, so that was where Chanyeol came in to help.

 

 

After the servant had brought up Kyungsoo’s breakfast to his room, Chanyeol would prop Kyungsoo up into a sitting position on the bed with the help of some pillows.

Then, he would put the stuffed penguin toy beside Kyungsoo, who had grown rather fond of it, because of the emotional significance and sentimentality he held towards the toy for being the first gift Chanyeol had given to him.

Chanyeol would help feed Kyungsoo before he even thought about eating, although Kyungsoo always insisted that Chanyeol tried to eat in-between too so they could essentially be eating together.

 

“Why don’t you get your servants to help you before this?” Chanyeol asked one morning, blowing the spoonful of porridge to cool it down before bringing it to Kyungsoo’s mouth.

Kyungsoo swallowed the spoonful of porridge and swallowed the food down with ease before replying, “I tell them not to. They’re just my servants, Chanyeol. Their job is just to clean, cook and maintain the house. They don’t have to deal with my personal problems.”

“Okay then,” Chanyeol accepted, “I guess that’s just what you’re used to like when you were growing up in your parent’s home too.”

“Do you think it’s weird?” Kyungsoo questioned, a bit sheepishly.

“No, not at all,” Chanyeol denied, “You maintain a strictly professional with your servants and that’s fine. I guess I’m just used to have things differently. My parents used to hire a foreign housekeeper who came around every day to clean our house and babysit my sister and me when we were kids. When we had birthday parties or whatnot, we invited her over and I guess she was more like a family friend than just a helper.”

“I see,” Kyungsoo comprehended, “-but our relationship is not just professional. I think it’s personal to me and always have been even if I’m your boss now. You’ve always been-,” Kyungsoo paused, looking down to the blanket covering his thighs, holding the toy in one hand before he continued, “-special to me.”

“I never saw it as strictly professional either,” Chanyeol grinned, putting the bowl back down on the tray before tucking Kyungsoo’s growing hair behind his ears, “-because I got to know you on a personal level first before I started working for you. You are very special and important to me too.”

“You still don’t think I’m weird?” Kyungsoo questioned, looking up at Chanyeol but still avoiding direct eye-contact, “I mean- you were the only person who wanted to talk to me in high school so I know you probably don’t think of me that way, but everyone kept saying otherwise so I just thought maybe you had that kind of thought too.”

“Of course not,” Chanyeol exclaimed, consoling Kyungsoo, “-besides, what’s wrong in being weird? I think it’d be boring if everyone human alive was the same, don’t you think?”

“You make me very happy. I haven’t felt like this in a long time,” Kyungsoo admitted, fisting his other hand into the blankets, “-sometimes it makes me scared to be happy and I can’t explain how is it I can feel this way.”

“I feel the same way too,” Chanyeol chimed in, “I’m very happy too right now and here with you, but I’m just afraid that something bad will come and ruin it all.”

“So it’s normal to feel that way, huh?” Kyungsoo supposed.

“Well, I looked it up and it’s a symptom of anxiety or something related to that,” Chanyeol informed, “It doesn’t really mean anything is wrong or going to be getting back at us.”

“I hope so too,” Kyungsoo slid his hand over the sheets, resting it on top of Chanyeol’s own larger hands, “I wish this could last forever.”

“Me too,” Chanyeol muttered, leaning in to press a kiss on Kyungsoo’s forehead before he returned to stirring the warm porridge in the bowl on the tray.

 

Chanyeol didn’t pay it much thought at first. Forever was just symbolism and nothing in this world was permanent, not even the universe itself.

Chanyeol was well aware of that fact and while he didn’t mean forever in the literal sense, he genuinely meant it when he said he’d be there with Kyungsoo with the finite time they had.

Kyungsoo knew better too but when all of it eventually turned into nothing but memories, he began to see another meaning and interpretation of what forever could also mean.

 

 

 

 

One night in the fall, a few months after Chanyeol had moved in with Kyungsoo, they were sitting on the couch together in the AV room after finishing a side quest in the game that they were playing and progressing in with each other.

It had been routine for them to continue the game and level their characters while continuing with the quests, almost every day after they were done with work.

After they were done gaming, if there was still some time left or if they didn’t have anything to do tomorrow, they would usually watch a movie or the news together.

 

 

That evening, after another gaming session, Kyungsoo was curled up on the couch beside Chanyeol, clinging onto the alpha’s arm as he leaned his head on Chanyeol’s shoulder. Chanyeol had placed a blanket around them to cover their bodies as they lounged around.

They were watching a movie which was now finished and then realized that it wasn’t that late or time to go to bed yet.

Now, both of them were rather undecided on deciding which movie or show to watch next, as they browsed through the online library and selection.

Still being unable to decide, Chanyeol turned to the news channel so they had something to watch at least. At this time of the night, the news channel would usually report on international news and situations.

 

 

After watching a brief segment covering a presidential election in another country the news moved on to cover the current situation of the ongoing civil war in Antitra.

In some of the footage aired on the television, it showed international soldiers at the frontline of the battle, handling and utilizing weapons with the symbol of Kyungsoo’s family’s weapon design firm.

Kyungsoo had been rubbing his thumb on Chanyeol’s arm which he was clinging onto. When the news footage clearly showed the soldiers using weapons designed and produced by his family, Kyungsoo abruptly stopped and stilled.

Chanyeol didn’t notice Kyungsoo’s change in action but he did notice the weapons clearly shown on the television.

Even though Kyungsoo’s family were selling their weapons to the technical peacekeepers of the war, it still didn’t change the fact that they were producing things which they were fully aware of the purpose- which was to kill.

 

Chanyeol pointed it out, “Aren’t those the ones your family produces?”

“Yeah, that’s it,” Kyungsoo answered, flatly, “They just own the company and oversee its operation. It’s the engineers who design and build the weapons. Not them. My family is more like the financers and benefactors.”

“Maybe that’s why everyone was a bit scared of you back when we were in high school,” Chanyeol joked, “-it’s because your parents own one of the largest weapon manufacturing companies in the world.”

“I thought so too,” Kyungsoo stated, not really seeing it as a joke but more of an affirmation, “-but it’s not like I had a say in that at the time. That’s why I don’t work directly for my family now.”

“You’re good,” Chanyeol assured, putting an arm behind and around Kyungsoo to pat him on the head.

 

 

After the war footage, which Kyungsoo was glad to see it finally over, the news then covered a report and interviews to some of the locals in the war-torn country regarding the rumors of dead soldiers being reanimated to life to continue to fight.

It was just speculation because of the difficulty to actually investigate it in the middle of the battlefield, but there were alleged reports of one of the belligerents of the war, reviving their dead soldiers into formidable fighters that could no longer die.

“Is that even possible?” Chanyeol scrunched his nose, supposing, “Maybe they built some artificial droids that look like humans to fight for them? I don’t think you could bring the dead back to life.”

“Let’s just switch channels,” Kyungsoo suggested, “I don’t really want to watch something so depressing this late at night.”

“Sure, of course,” Chanyeol complied, switching the channel to a late-night talk show instead.

Kyungsoo didn’t complain this time.

 

 

Kyungsoo was quiet of the rest of the night, all the way until bedtime. He only spoke a few words and he didn’t bring anything else up to start a conversation.

Chanyeol didn’t really question it at the time, nor did he feel like something was off.  Kyungsoo had always been the quieter and introverted one between the both of them.

 

Kyungsoo still did kiss and hug him goodnight before they went off to sleep in their separate rooms, so Chanyeol didn’t feel like Kyungsoo was worried about something at the time.

Although they occasionally slept in the same bed with each other, they both acknowledged that their relationship wasn’t quite there yet, although it was progressing nonetheless.

 

 

 

 

Eventually, the time did come around for them to begin asking each other and making a clear definition of their relationship.

That was after one too many goodnight kisses that were supposed to be short and chaste, which turned into full make-out sessions with heavy petting and lot of grinding involved. Although, somehow, sexual intercourse was still not in the picture for the time being.

 

 

It was on one of those nights. Kyungsoo was not on heat but they were just simply horny- for each other to be precise.

 

They were in Chanyeol’s room and he was on the edge of the bed, with his beige trousers pooling on the floor around his ankles.

Chanyeol was quivering, moaning throatily with his head thrown back. Kyungsoo was on the bed beside Chanyeol with his head between the alpha’s thigh, sucking and bobbing his wet mouth and lips down on the throbbing knot.

Chanyeol tried not to thrust up into Kyungsoo’s mouth but he couldn’t help it. His hips were moving on their own and his hands were pressing down on Kyungsoo’s head, firm but not hard to match the thrusts with Kyungsoo’s movements.

 

 

Kyungsoo hollowed out his cheeks, breathing in deep, with his right hand gripping the base of Chanyeol’s shaft that didn’t fit in his mouth. Chanyeol was an alpha and as biology dictated it should be, he was huge and Kyungsoo couldn’t fit all of it into his mouth even with the inches literally sticking down his throat.

While Kyungsoo kept sucking with a hand on Chanyeol’s cock and another cradling the balls beneath the shaft, Kyungsoo thought he might as well try it.

Kyungsoo held his breath and slowly, lightly grazing his teeth against Chanyeol’s cock, forced his jaw open even further as he attempted to fit all of Chanyeol’s cock in his mouth.

Kyungsoo hated to admit it but he had deep throated the previous alpha he was dating, who was no way as big or close to Chanyeol’s size. Chanyeol was large and it was going to be slightly more challenging.

 

Kyungsoo gradually lowered his head down on Chanyeol’s cock, inch by inch and assisted by the weight of Chanyeol’s hand pressing down on the back of his hand.

Kyungsoo screwed his eyes shut as his eyes watered when he felt the head of Chanyeol’s cock breaching his windpipe, his throat stuffed and stretched this wide for the first time in all of his years alive.

Eventually, it got up to a point where Kyungsoo’s lips now met his own fingers which were gripping onto the base of Chanyeol’s cock. Kyungsoo removed his fingers, held his breath and grabbed onto Chanyeol’s thigh instead as he engulfed the remaining few inches, pushing it further down his throat until his face was literally pressing against Chanyeol’s balls.

 

 

Breathing was hard, Kyungsoo’s head was pounding and Chanyeol above him was shaking, cursing and moaning deeply.

Kyungsoo could literally feel the weight and bulge it caused in his throat. If Kyungsoo were to reach his hand up and feel the front of his own throat, he could feel it distending and protruding outwards because of Chanyeol’s cock shoved down his throat.

When the normal physical action of someone swallowing down their saliva in their mouths happened to Kyungsoo, his throat constricted around Chanyeol’s chock, pulsating and throbbing against it.

 

“Fuck,” Chanyeol cursed out again, pushing his hips up into Kyungsoo’s face, driving his cock deeper down Kyungsoo’s throat.

Kyungsoo made small choking noises and felt like he might actually throw up when Chanyeol thrust up into him without warning. Kyungsoo pulled his head back, blinking away tears and repeated the action but not going too deep like before.

Kyungsoo moaned when he felt Chanyeol’s cock pressing to the back of his throat again, which send shivers all down his spine and to his own neglected nether regions which were wet and dripping with slick.

 

 

When Chanyeol was about to cum, he tried to stop Kyungsoo before it happened; pulling Kyungsoo’s head up and away from his cock.

Just as Kyungsoo had only the tip of Chanyeol’s cock in his mouth while he was being pushed off, Chanyeol came right then, ejaculating spurts of warm cum inside Kyungsoo’s mouth.

Kyungsoo didn’t expect it to happen then too and couldn’t close his mouth in time as he sat back up on the side of the bed, spilling cum all the way from his mouth, down his chin and even back onto Chanyeol’s groin.

“Sorry,” Chanyeol uttered in apology, regaining his breath.

“-it’s fine,” Kyungsoo responded, wiping the corner of his mouth with the back of his palm.

 

This was almost nothing to him. Kyungsoo honestly had been through worse when the alpha he used to date would insist to pee on him, claiming it was the only way he’d be able to get off, despite Kyungsoo’s insistence that he wasn’t comfortable with such an act.

The way Chanyeol was always looking out for him was just maybe one of the many reasons why Kyungsoo fell so hard for the alpha, up to a point where the alpha he used to date even resembled Chanyeol and it was not a coincidence that they were similar.

Kyungsoo had sought out alphas with a resemblance to and those who reminded him of Chanyeol, simply because of the fact that Kyungsoo never got over his first love.

Nothing could ever beat the real deal that was Chanyeol.

 

 

“Come here, let me take care of you,” Chanyeol grabbed Kyungsoo on the arm, flipping him over onto his front.

Kyungsoo landed on the soft sheets of the bed beneath him, face down and ass up. Kyungsoo moved onto his knees, propping and sticking his naturally lubricated butt out towards Chanyeol.

Chanyeol had just come and it would take him some time until he was able to get hard again. Kyungsoo knew that he shouldn’t be expecting full-on intercourse now, not when it had never happened since Chanyeol moved in with him two months ago.

It wasn’t something strange and thought to be expected, but Kyungsoo was still caught by surprise by the sudden sensation of a warm, soft and wet lick from his balls up his perineum and towards the rim of his hole.

 

 

With each of hand on Kyungsoo’s butt cheeks to spread the globes of flesh apart, Chanyeol sucked onto Kyungsoo’s balls before letting it go with a pop and then licking his way up the perineum to caress Kyungsoo’s entrance with the tip of his tongue, gently blowing on it at the same time.

Kyungsoo hissed at the contrast of the surrounding cold air and the warm air from Chanyeol’s mouth. But he was the one with more self-control that night and managed to still his hips for the most part of it.

After letting his tongue explore and trace around the rim of Kyungsoo’s twitching hole, Chanyeol replaced his tongue with his lips and began to suck, inserting a finger inside at the same time.

 

Kyungsoo gasped out loud, with his cheek pressed to the pillow beneath him as his hands flew to grab onto the sheets, especially when Chanyeol was pulling him back by the hip onto the alpha’s face nestled between his butt cheeks.

Chanyeol only pulled away for a while, hovering his wet lips just inches above Kyungsoo’s hole, which was spasming as it was desperate to be filled.

Chanyeol spat into Kyungsoo’s hole and swallowed the rest of his own saliva, watching it trickle down and inside Kyungsoo before ordering him loud enough, “Fuck yourself on my face.”

“Yes,” Kyungsoo sobbed, nodding into the pillow.                         

 

 

Chanyeol returned his lips and tongue to Kyungsoo’s hole, puckering and then enveloping his lips around the entrance as his tongue prodded inside, while his hands kept Kyungsoo’s butt spread apart.

Kyungsoo’s natural lubrication and his own saliva felt a bit salty with a tinge of sourness on Chanyeol’s tongue. Chanyeol was sure he had swallowed the mixture of it several times now and it was such a desirable thought to him.

Chanyeol kept his head still and only his lips and mouths moving, allowing Kyungsoo to grind his hips back onto Chanyeol’s face, smothering Chanyeol with his ass as Kyungsoo desperately chased for the stimulation that Chanyeol was offering him.

 

 

A tongue still didn’t measure up to the girth and length of a cock but it was additionally exhilarating to know that all of Chanyeol’s attention at the time was focused simply on pleasuring him.

Only Chanyeol could ever make Kyungsoo feel this special and wanted, Kyungsoo believed.

 

Kyungsoo began to get needy when he felt that pressure building inside him, the peak rising and seemingly approaching the climax, only for it to stall at such a point.

Kyungsoo began to cry out in frustration, frustrated and just mindlessly needy, with his head clouded by lust and carnal desire.

“Please, I need to cum. I have to,” Kyungsoo whimpered, his voice soft and higher than usual, “I need more.”

Behind him, Chanyeol sighed. Maybe it was time for them to finally have intercourse with each other and just mate, but Chanyeol reminded himself that it still wasn’t the right time, after all.

 

Chanyeol was aware and knew that Kyungsoo’s body was seeking to be filled with something bigger and thicker. Chanyeol knew he should have just ordered a dildo online to use on Kyungsoo but it was too late for that now.

Chanyeol added two more fingers inside Kyungsoo, joining the middle finger already there. It wasn’t it but it should do for now.

 

 

Kyungsoo seemed to accept it too and soon his cries of frustration were turned into pleasured ones, as he ground and pushed his hip back against Chanyeol’s mouth and fingers, fucking Chanyeol’s face, and digits.

Kyungsoo moaned uncontrollably with every rapid breath he took, the loudest he had been that night as he came, tightening around Chanyeol’s fingers as a gush of slick spilled out his hole and onto Chanyeol’s face.

 

“Did you like it?” Chanyeol murmured against Kyungsoo’s skin, lifting his face up to kiss Kyungsoo on the lower back.

“Yes, it was good,” Kyungsoo affirmed, crawling down the bed and into a sitting position, “I’m going to take a shower.”

“Alright,” Chanyeol responded, sitting with his legs crossed on the bed, “Can I come with you?”

“Of course,” Kyungsoo smiled back, swinging one leg over the bed and planting the heel of his foot on the floor below, “-why would you think that you weren’t allowed from showering with me?”

“Well, I just thought that since we aren’t officially a couple yet, I should be on the safe side and ask,” Chanyeol explained, slightly abashed.

“Hmm…about that,” Kyungsoo pondered, sitting on the edge of the bed with one foot off the bed and the other still on it, “I’ve been thinking about it and I was wondering if you wanted to try and be in a relationship with me again and be my boyfriend?”

“-r-really?” Chanyeol jolted, sitting up straight as his ears perked to the offer, “Are you for real?”

“I am. I’ve never felt this comfortable around someone unlike with you. I guess it’s because we go a long way and I trust you. So I really think you are the right person for me,” Kyungsoo declared.

“Yes! Of course,” Chanyeol agreed, “I would very much like to be your boyfriend too. You know, I’ve always had a crush on you since the first day we met and even now many years later, I still feel all giddy and excited about it like the first day I saw you.”

“That makes me very happy,” Kyungsoo expressed, feeling like he was being utterly blessed.

 

Maybe this was the supposed rainbow after the rain, and maybe they were finally going to be together and find their happiness with each other.

They would only later find out that this just the calm before the storm, which would leave a path of destruction in its wake even after it had passed.

 

 

 

 

The initial stages of a relationship always felt like the best, especially when one was in the honeymoon stage of it.

It was all exciting and thrilling as they were high on the satisfaction of finally getting to be in a relationship with the one they desired the most. Even if they had been together a long time ago, everything still felt new and every day was a new adventure with new fun things to discover with each other.

 

For Chanyeol, he had always felt like that and for Kyungsoo, he was beginning to know how it felt all over again after being hurt in the past.

Kyungsoo found that it was hard to love himself when no one else ever showed him that he could be loved. But Chanyeol changed all that for Kyungsoo.

Chanyeol too told Yoora about how he and Kyungsoo were official a couple too now. She was happy for Chanyeol and pleased to hear the news because she always had a positive opinion towards Kyungsoo who had proven it further by literally buying him off from the black market.

 

 

Although they didn’t leave the house often and mainly worked from home, they were never bored or ran out of things to do. When they did go out, they were attached at the hip and were practically glued to each other like a young couple who didn’t know how to keep their hands off each other.

There should have probably been a clear boundary or line between their professional and personal relationship, but Kyungsoo didn’t think much of it at the time.

 

Because he trusted Chanyeol and because he loved Chanyeol very much, Kyungsoo trusted Chanyeol to take over his work and even act or make decisions on his behalf, even when he now had a mate and no longer had to go out of work because of his episodes.

 

 

 

 

Sometime in the early winter, about four months since Chanyeol first moved in with Kyungsoo, Chanyeol began to notice an influx of visitors to the house.

All of the men and women who came to visit Kyungsoo were dressed well, wore expensive jewelry, had expensive cars bringing them there and brought along at least one or two assistants when they came.

Although they were different people, somehow, Chanyeol just thought that they all had this similar quiet but menacing look, like the man who dragged him out of his parent’s funeral and had him sold off to repay their debts.

 

These people would come by the house for a few hours to talk privately with Kyungsoo, before leaving and Kyungsoo would always see them off at the door with the servants.

After they left, Chanyeol did ask Kyungsoo why they had come and for what purpose, to which Kyungsoo would only explain as business dealings.

When Chanyeol heard it was that case, he asked if he could help in any way, but Kyungsoo had told him that it had more to do with his parent’s company and not the small financing firm he ran on the side.

Seeing that it was out of his job scope and expertise, Chanyeol let it be and didn’t really think much of it at the time.

 

 

 

Not long later, Kyungsoo sent Chanyeol out to Seoul for the first time, to go to the main office in the heart of the city a few hours away.

Apparently, there was some work there that needed to be done in the office with the other staff there, and Kyungsoo needed Chanyeol to be there on behalf of him.

Kyungsoo did not come along because he had another one of his parent’s business partners to meet later that day at home, so Chanyeol was sent out alone to the city for the day.

 

 

Chanyeol had seen this tall skyscraper several times when he passed by that part of Seoul, but he never he’d be in it or had something to do there.

Everyone around knew the building belonged to one of the largest weapon and armed technology manufacturers of the 21st century, which happened to be founded by Kyungsoo’s grandparents and was now ran by his parents and older brother.

Although they were mostly contracted to supply weapons and tech for the South Korean army, they too supplied for the “peacekeepers” fighting in the raging war in Antitra. There were also rumors of them selling weapons and arming just about anyone who would pay them for it.

Technically, Chanyeol too worked for them now, albeit through the subsidiary finance firm that Kyungsoo ran.

 

 

 

When Chanyeol entered the office and introduced himself, he met the general manager for the first time, who showed him around and told him what needed to be done.

Chanyeol was shown to Kyungsoo’s office, where Kyungsoo used to work in before deciding to work at home. The office was rather cozy, private and something that Chanyeol would expect of the quiet and sometimes shy Kyungsoo.

The manager told him he could use the office but warned him not to touch anything, and to just use the desk and computer to carry out his task.

 

When Chanyeol was handed the paperwork that he was supposed to do that day, he was a bit puzzled because he had assumed that it would be something more important and urgent which required him to come out all the way there.

In fact, it was nothing quite like what Chanyeol thought it would be. It was simple accounts and the regular check and balance he did on an almost daily basis, which could evidently be done remotely.

Thinking that Kyungsoo must have had his reasons which Chanyeol didn’t know of, he started to work on it and kept looking at the time to see how long he was taking, because all he could think of was getting home and back to Kyungsoo.

Over the past few months, this was the first time they had been so far apart, even if that wasn’t too far either. Admittedly, they had gotten far rather too attached and clingy to each other.

 

 

Chanyeol finished up the work early because he was just eager to throw his arms around Kyungsoo again. But he was later informed that the driver would only be coming around in at least two more hours.

Bored with nothing else to do, Chanyeol wandered around the building and outside, going to some nearby shops to window shop and then return to the building foyer where he continued to wait for the driver to arrive.

Chanyeol made small talk with the lobby receptionist to pass his time, asking her questions like such as how long she had been working there, if she liked the pay or what she did to waste time when it got boring on the job.

She entertained Chanyeol’s questions as it was mainly her duty to do so, only excusing herself for a while when the delivery man came around to drop off sealed thick envelopes at the receptionist’s desk.

 

 

As the receptionist was signing off the delivery and making sure that they were sent to the right address, Chanyeol noticed a familiar seal of a golden dragon, embed into the top corner of one of the envelopes.

It was the same seal he saw on the papers that his parent’s had signed in their own blood to inhumanly give him away to repay the debts they couldn’t pay off.

That particular envelope was also addressed to the general manager of the financing firm which Kyungsoo ran as a subsidiary to his parent’s company.

 

 

 

While the receptionist and the delivery man were busy talking about the delivery, Chanyeol quickly pulled out his phone and snapped a picture of the seal.

He then excused himself to use the toilet, but instead, he just sat on the toilet seat, cropping the picture so it was just the image of the seal before uploading it in on a reverse image search site.

After going through several search results, Chanyeol found himself on some online forum which discussed contemporary conspiracy theories concerning famous figures and large corporations.

 

The reverse image search led him to a forum thread about a discussion regarding the weapon industry and its involvement with several popular conspiracy theories. One of the weapon manufacturers mentioned in the thread was the one Kyungsoo’s family owned.

A few forum users theorized that the weapons company Kyungsoo’s family owned were only supplying weapons to foreign powers and peacekeepers of the Antitra civil war because they had a personal interest in the territories that were being fought over.

What their personal interests were in the war-torn area was left up to debate. While some theorized it was natural resources, corporate control over a country, some also theorized their desire to control important historical and religious sites.

 

 

While that was an interesting read at least, it wasn’t what Chanyeol sought the answers for. He wanted to know what this black market company which dealt with money laundering and selling humans had to do with Kyungsoo’s finance firm.

Chanyeol kept scrolling through further down the thread and found a post in the thread, saying how the weapon company Kyungsoo’s family owned, had actually more subsidiaries than the one they publicly put up for.

The picture of the same golden dragon seal was included in the post, saying how this company whose front was a money laundering firm, actually dealt with the underworld trading and had a connection to Kyungsoo and his family.

 

This finding was certainly noteworthy and Chanyeol kept searching through on the internet about more information he could dig up, even on the drive back to the house.

He even forgot his excitement at finally getting to go home and hug Kyungsoo after a long day. Right now he just wanted to know how all of this was related to each other.

Chanyeol didn’t suspect Kyungsoo of anything malicious or harming towards him. It wasn’t rare to hear of big corporations with at least a few ties to the criminal underworld, but this had affected Chanyeol personally and changed his life for good, so he thought that he at least deserved to know and have his questions answered.

 

 

 

Unable to wait, Chanyeol hailed a ride and by the time he arrived at the house, the driver who was supposed to pick him up had just arrived at the building.

When he pulled up in the driveway after the few hours’ drive, Chanyeol paid his fare and almost leaped out of the car. Strutting his way to the entrance of the house, Chanyeol noticed another expensive car in the driveway with its driver waiting outside.

Chanyeol assumed that the car probably belonged to the business partner Kyungsoo said he’d be meeting up today.

 

 

Chanyeol marched into the house, ignoring the butler who was surprised to see him arrive so early, and the driver constantly calling Chanyeol to inform that he had just arrived to pick him up.

Chanyeol walked up the stairs and down the corridor to find Kyungsoo, only to find his boyfriend standing outside the door to his office with the same man who dragged him out of his parent’s funeral.

The man was smiling, booming as he laughed to Kyungsoo who was more abashed and simply nodded while smiling along.

The man thanked Kyungsoo and shook his head before he turned to leave when he and Kyungsoo finally noticed that Chanyeol was there.

 

 

 

Kyungsoo gasped, shocked and was unable to say anything, as the man with the gold chain and watch approached Chanyeol.

“I don’t remember your name but I remember how you look. You’re the one I sold off to Kyungsoo. It looks like you’re doing well,” The man laughed pretentiously, turning to Kyungsoo, “I see you’re good at taking care of your goods. You’re probably the only person I know who would buy an alpha and actually keep him.”

Chanyeol was unable to say anything, confused, hurt and maybe feeling a bit betrayed. So this entire time, had Kyungsoo been working alongside this man? And to what extent was Chanyeol unaware of it?

The man continued to laugh and then bade goodbye, walking himself to the door with his assistants who joined him shortly after. Chanyeol recognized one of them as the burly, scary looking alpha who was his jailer while he was being detained by them before being bought off by Kyungsoo.

 

 

“I can explain!” Kyungsoo exclaimed, walking up to where Chanyeol was standing in the corridor.

It was still bright outside and there was still light pouring in through the glass windows behind the parted curtains down the corridor, clear enough to see that it had just begun to lightly snow outside.

Chanyeol raised a hand, signaling Kyungsoo to stop from coming closer to him as he tried to collect his thoughts.

“So, you work with him, huh?” Chanyeol spoke up after a moment of silence.

“I don’t work with him in the way you think it is, Chanyeol,” Kyungsoo denied.

“So this is the business partner you wanted to meet today, so much that you had me go away to do some menial task which could actually be done here, just because you didn’t me to run into him?” Chanyeol supposed, surprisingly calm, “How are you going to explain that?”

“Yes, it’s true but it’s not what you think it is,” Kyungsoo admitted, “My financing firm loans money to all types of companies and corporations. We make a profit from the interest that goes into financing the weapon manufacturing industry. You know that. That man is just one of the companies we help finance too. Because of his business method, he needs to rely on buyers to make a profit and that’s where he comes to us.”

“So you mean to say that you were aware of how much money my parents owed them, of the contract they signed and how it was all connected to me? Then why didn’t you do or say anything?” Chanyeol was baffled.

“I don’t know anything about that, I swear,” Kyungsoo claimed, “I know what it is they do but they act independently so I wasn’t aware of your parent’s debt, or that they signed your life over to them to make up for it. I’m not saying that I don’t know what their kind of business is but I only really found out about you when Yoora came to me, asking for help.”

“Then why didn’t you tell me in the first place? Why did you hide all of this from me?” Chanyeol questioned, shivering not from the cold but from the intensity of the moment.

“It’s not good for business for such a public company like my family’s to be tied to something like theirs. Which is why I had to keep it a secret, and why we only discuss business here and through me and not my parents directly,” Kyungsoo answered, “-besides, I didn’t know how to approach you about this. I thought that if you knew how I was involved with them, you’d leave or you’d hate me because of what had happened to you.”

“-but you said you trusted me,” Chanyeol almost cried out, “-knowing you’d hide something like this just tells me that you don’t actually mean it. My parents killed themselves over this and I could almost end up dead too!”

“Look, I’m really sorry for what happened to you but I wasn’t involved in any of that. I just hid this from you because I didn’t want you to leave me like my ex did to me,” Kyungsoo sobbed, unable to hold back his tears anymore, as he had to grab his own hands to stop them from shaking uncontrollably.

“Don’t compare me to that gold digger ex of yours!” Chanyeol snapped, “Is that how low and little you think of me!?”

“No, of course not. It’s not like that,” Kyungsoo exclaimed, very afraid that Chanyeol had taken things out of context.

Chanyeol dryly chuckled, pinching the bridge of his nose, “I get it now. Why you’d actually spend so much money on a worthless person like me and not expect anything in return. So you actually just really wanted an alpha mate, one to fulfill your needs and fill the gap your ex left you. You said he was just after your money, but you’re basically using your money to get me now too. You’re doing the same thing, Kyungsoo.”

“Y-you’re getting t-things wrong there,” Kyungsoo’s voice broke, stuttering as he tried his best explain, “I didn’t know about all of this. If it wasn’t for Yoora, I wouldn’t have known so how could I be using my money just to get you?”

“Sure you didn’t know about it but you sure as hell did use your money to make me stay here with you, so I would become your lover and so you would have a mate again without all that pain you go through. That clearly explains why you hid all of this information from me. Because like you said, you were afraid I’d leave if I knew,” Chanyeol accused.

“I love you! I’ve always loved you,” Kyungsoo trembled, his knees weak, heavy and threatening to give away any time now, “-which is why I never expected anything in return! Because I loved you, if I knew that you were alright and taken care of, it was enough to make me happy. That’s how much I love you! Can’t you see that!? What’s wrong if I want to use my own money to pamper you because I love you?”

“My parents loved my sister and me very much too. So much that they had to borrow all those money to pamper us and look what happened. They’re dead and I don’t really have rights to my own existence,” Chanyeol sternly stated.

“-but I’m rich!” Kyungsoo argued back, “I can afford it, unlike your broke ass parents who sold off their own son and decided to die thinking it would help them!”

“You’re right, Kyungsoo,” Chanyeol retorted, “-which is why I’m going to do things differently than what they did. You know that 7 billion won you paid to own me? I’ve decided right here and now that no one will ever own me! I don’t care if it takes me three lifetimes to do it but I’ll pay you back that 7 billion won and be my own person!”

“What!?” Kyungsoo was shocked and attempted to reach out a hand to Chanyeol, who only stepped away further from him.

“Don’t touch me! You may own me for now but mark my words, I am going to leave this place and find a job of my own. I’ll pay back all the money and you shall not own me anymore!” Chanyeol yelled, “When I leave, I don’t want to see your face and I don’t want you in my life anymore!”

“Why are you making a problem out of all of this?” Kyungsoo begged, “Please stay. I told you everything already. I don’t have a problem with it so please, just stay.”

“That’s where you’re wrong. You may not have a problem with it but I do!” Chanyeol stormed off back to his room, leaving Kyungsoo high and strung in the corridor. 

 

 

The gap between them was all but closing up. The argument had been for naught. It ended worse than it started and Chanyeol in the fit of rage and anger had decided to end things with Kyungsoo for good.

Although they weren’t mated to each other yet, Chanyeol had basically rejected Kyungsoo and left alone to deal with an additional pain of heartbreak on top of it.

Maybe it was a good thing that they hadn’t completed the mating ritual of becoming soul mates, despite Kyungsoo very obviously wanting his and Chanyeol’s relationship to progress to such a level.

 

 

 

 

Chanyeol was a man of his word and he left the next morning, leaving Kyungsoo to eat alone at the breakfast table for the first time in a while. Kyungsoo was alone all over again like he always had been.

The previous night, Kyungsoo had stayed up the entire time debating on whether he should just go ahead to apologize and gruel at Chanyeol’s feet for forgiveness, to beg Chanyeol to stay with him.

When he remembered Chanyeol saying that he didn’t want to see Kyungsoo anymore, Kyungsoo thought he should respect Chanyeol’s wishes and leave him alone, despite not wanting to leave Chanyeol at the same time.

 

At the moment, Kyungsoo thought if maybe it was wrong of him to be comfortable and feel that he was finally happy with life.

Kyungsoo began to think that he was just maybe one of those people who were destined to be unhappy, hurt and unlucky throughout their entire lives. Not everyone had a happy ending and not everything got better.

Kyungsoo started to believe that he was just one of those people because it always seemed like everything would come crashing down just when he thought things were picking up.

 

 


	3. 3/4

 

After Chanyeol moved out of Kyungsoo’s place and returned to Seoul, he slept in cheap inns in rather questionable parts of the city, where the roomed looked like a cover-up to a previous murder scene.

Chanyeol didn’t complain though. He’d been through worse and Kyungsoo still owned his life anyway, so he wasn’t afraid of suddenly being kidnapped and then sold to be killed off for some sick person who happened to have a lot of money.

As long as he had a roof on his head, he was fine.

 

 

Chanyeol spent the entire day outside anyway to worry about the place he was sleeping in, going around and handing his resume to various places to look for a job that fit his qualifications.

Chanyeol was really bent on paying back Kyungsoo and becoming his own free man; despite knowing that unless he robbed a bank or won the lottery, there was no way he’d have all that money within his expected lifespan.

Chanyeol was still incessantly angry at Kyungsoo because it was the only way he knew how to deal with his feelings and shortcomings, by being angry at someone else other than himself instead.

The anger had not subsided yet and Chanyeol directed all his pent-up frustration towards Kyungsoo too, even though Kyungsoo probably did not deserve all that hate and spite.

 

 

 

At almost thirty years old with no job experience, except the short stint he had working with Kyungsoo, it wasn’t easy for Chanyeol to find a job even with a Master’s Degree in a skilled trade.

Chanyeol managed to survive by living in the cheap inn and eating convenience store food, bought with the money Kyungsoo had paid Chanyeol for working with him.

 

Even though the money came from Kyungsoo, Chanyeol justified that he had worked hard to earn it and that the money wasn’t coming from Kyungsoo because of that.

But when Chanyeol managed to get a job and started earning regularly, he vowed to pay Kyungsoo back, not because of gratitude and because he wanted to, but because of spite to show Kyungsoo that he was better than that.

 

 

Chanyeol had it wrong though. It was just all in his head because of his misdirected feelings and his inability to sort his emotions, so he had decided to just blame Kyungsoo for everything wrong in his life.

Kyungsoo never looked down on Chanyeol; never saw him as a lower person, never wanted to hurt him and was sincere in every act he had done even at the cost of his own expense.

 

 

 

Chanyeol eventually found a job with a small tax firm. He was hired as a temporary contract staff for six months while on probation, and if his performance was up to standards, he would be hired as a permanent staff.

With a stable income, Chanyeol was able to rent a small studio apartment and buy things with his own money. Chanyeol donated the clothes Kyungsoo had bought him to some homeless people sleeping on the roadside; only wanting to use the clothes he bought by himself.

Chanyeol kept his promise and all the leftover money from his salary every month after accounting for rent, food and expenses were sent to Kyungsoo.

 

Chanyeol eventually told Yoora about him breaking up with Kyungsoo, and to ask her to stop talking about Kyungsoo to him. Yoora was a bit sad to hear that they had broken up but she didn’t pester him about it or try to get them back together again. She admitted that after hearing what Chanyeol had done, she thought it was rather harsh but felt like it wasn’t her place to say anything else.

 

 

 

Every month, on Chanyeol’s payday, Kyungsoo would receive an email telling him that an amount of money had been transferred into his personal account.

The sender was Chanyeol and upon seeing that, Kyungsoo would go still, quiet behind the screen of his computer or his phone as he felt a sharp stabbing pain rising through his chest and into his heart.

Kyungsoo couldn’t tell anymore if it was the painful episodes of being a scarred soul or if it was just the pain of being hated by the person he loved with all of his heart. Either way, they were both equally terrible.

 

Kyungsoo still loved Chanyeol very much and on long days when he missed Chanyeol the most, Kyungsoo was tempted to call and text Chanyeol.

If Kyungsoo could just hear Chanyeol’s voice speak one more word, or hear that Chanyeol was doing well and fine, it was enough for Kyungsoo. If Chanyeol was better off this way, Kyungsoo accepted that.

But before Kyungsoo could even press the button to call Chanyeol or hit that “send text” button, Chanyeol’s voice would ring in his head, yelling at him to stay out of his life. Kyungsoo’s heart would drop to his stomach every time and he would just end up putting his phone away before he did it.

Kyungsoo truly believed he deserved to be hated, for working with all those kind of people, for helping his family’s business that contributed to a lot of deaths worldwide.

Kyungsoo wanted to be happy just like the next person, but all the things and events in his life seemed to tell him otherwise.

 

 

 

The painful episodes always seemed to occur at night or in the evening, and it was most unlikely to happen during the day. The nights had always been the hardest for Kyungsoo, and now it was even more so after Chanyeol’s departure.

Chanyeol only left an emotional scar on Kyungsoo when he left, but the pain of it ran deep to even hurt Kyungsoo physically on top of the suffering he still faced from being a scarred soul.

 

 

On those painful nights, with no one to turn to or no one to ask help from, Kyungsoo endured it all alone like he always had been.

He’d writhe, cry and scream out loud in his room, often times falling off the bed and injuring himself when he landed on the floor.

His heart, his skin, his nerves, and every blood vessel in him burned and ached all for the sin of wanting to be loved, wanting to be wanted and wanting to not be alone.

 

“I deserve this,” Kyungsoo would whimper, sobbing to himself in the fetal position on the floor, with cheek-stained tears as he clutched a hand to his chest above where his heart was.

Sometimes, Kyungsoo would accidentally pee on himself during an episode because it was so painful that he’d lose all his bladder control.

Kyungsoo would later clean this all up by himself, embarrassed and not wanting anyone, not even the servants to find about this.

This had happened at least once while Chanyeol still lived with him, but Kyungsoo had hidden the wet spot on his bed by covering it with blankets.

 

 

That night, suffering from the pain of the episodes, Kyungsoo was lying on his side on the bed, clawing at the pillows and the sheets as he tried to hide his screams by biting onto a cloth he had rolled up and placed between his teeth for precautionary measures. Kyungsoo wasn’t planning on biting his tongue off.

Thrashing on the bed, pouring and sticky with sweat despite his cold room and the winter air freezing outside, Kyungsoo saw the stuffed penguin toy at the corner of his bed.

It had been pushed aside from its usual spot on the pillow beside him because of his erratic movements.

 

Even if it was just for a brief fleeting moment, Kyungsoo forgot all his pain as he stretched his limp arm out to reach for the stuffed toy before pulling it close to him.

Kyungsoo hugged the toy close to his person, pressed up against his wildly beating heart. Kyungsoo never washed the toy since he got it because he didn’t want Chanyeol’s scent on it to wear off, so it was still there like the day Kyungsoo was gifted it.

Kyungsoo cried even harder when he embraced the toy. It was just a cheap toy but this was the only thing left which connected Kyungsoo to Chanyeol.

Kyungsoo imagined he was hugging Chanyeol, safe and warm in the alpha’s arms when he hugged the toy. When Kyungsoo realized how badly he wanted his imagination to be real, that was when the pain started to flow and attack at every fiber of his being again.

Kyungsoo only blamed himself for everything, not the alpha that made him this way and certainly not Chanyeol either. 

 

 

 

 

On the other hand, Chanyeol’s mind and reasoning were beginning to clear up and finally settle down from the turmoil that was his parent’s death, immediately being sold right after and then bought by Kyungsoo who was now his two times ex-boyfriend.

His anger was subsiding too and although he still found reasons to justify how he felt and dealt with Kyungsoo at the time, Chanyeol perhaps thought that maybe Kyungsoo deserved a better breakup than that, especially after everything Kyungsoo had done for him.

 

 

Chanyeol didn’t go out much after he was done with work. He cooked his own meals and ate at home to save money. He only went out to take walks or jogs at public parks for recreation because it was free. He lived thriftily and avoided buying things he didn’t need.

Because Chanyeol was trying to save up money to pay off a debt that would take three entire lifetimes to pay off.

 

But despite the spendthrift lifestyle he had imposed on himself, Chanyeol actually made what he would call an unnecessary nonsensical purchase at least once.

Chanyeol had just started work a few days ago and he was walking through a mall to use a shortcut to get home. He had just discovered this shortcut that would have saved him from walking a few more blocks.

 

While he was passing by shops in the mall, he came across a claw machine with the same kind of penguin toy he had won for Kyungsoo months ago. The shape and size were exactly the same and Chanyeol was instantly reminded of Kyungsoo when he laid eyes upon it.

When Chanyeol had seen the penguin toy at a point when he was still angry at Kyungsoo, even the sight of the toy despised him and he even fantasized kicking down the entire machine so he could trash and destroy all the toys inside.

 

 

Chanyeol tried to avoid looking at the claw machine he had to pass by in the mall every day on the way home from work. But the temptation grew stronger by the day and Chanyeol felt somehow that his anger would never subside unless he actually realized his fantasy of destroying the toy.

Hence, one day after work, after his first paycheck, Chanyeol spent a little amount of money to win the penguin toy from the claw machine. It didn’t cost him much, not even the price of a simple packed meal.

After winning it, Chanyeol stuffed the toy into his briefcase and couldn’t wait to get home, where he then ripped and shredded the penguin toy apart with his bare hands. Chanyeol clawed his nails and bit his teeth through the cotton and fabric, tearing it apart into nothing but pieces of stuffing and cloth that lay around in a mess on his floor.

Only after that was he somewhat satisfied, although it did little next to nothing to change things.

 

Chanyeol’s anger at the unfairness he had been through was so misdirected onto Kyungsoo, where he would even consider destroying everything that would remind him of Kyungsoo. Kyungsoo didn’t find about this, but if he had, he would have been beyond heartbroken but he would still understand.

Kyungsoo, on the other hand, took great care of the toy Chanyeol had given him because it was the one thing that sort of made him feel connected to Chanyeol. Kyungsoo put it on his bed beside him whenever he went to sleep and he would also take it with him around the house sometimes.

Kyungsoo sometimes got scared if someone from the outside found out about how he was carting around some toy, afraid that they would call him creepy, crazy and weird. Kyungsoo already knew he was odd and different from others. He just didn’t want things to get worse than they already were. 

 

 

 

After yet another day at work, Chanyeol came home in the evening and had dinner on the low table he had in the living room. There were no chairs because Chanyeol didn’t want to spend money on that. He had decided that just sitting on the floor would suffice because the table was low enough.

Chanyeol didn’t have a television set either. Instead, he watched shows and the news he could access for free on his phone.

While eating dinner, Chanyeol had propped up the phone Kyungsoo gave him onto a book so he could watch some news clips on the internet while he ate.

 

Now, the Antitra civil war was coming to an end, with the unified peacekeeper army managing to gain control of the country from the other belligerent through fierce and bloody battles.

This supposed victory for the people was also heavily reported by the media and news outlets because this unified peacekeeper army just happened to be on the winning side and was funded by several different countries with their own interests too.

 

 

Chanyeol liked watching and catching up with the news while he ate every day after work. While he was watching the news on his phone that evening, the news aired a segment where an ancient cave was discovered in Antitra.

Because of the war and its location in former hostile territories, numerous battles and strikes had taken place there. The bombs, missiles, and explosives utilized throughout the war had weakened the topography of the area and unearthed the cave, which turned out to be some sort of ancient burial or ritual area.

 

A researcher and expert on the region’s history, who was interviewed on the television, explained that the ancient people of the area believed that they could raise the dead by sacrificing other lives. The researcher also believed that the cave may have been one of the sites for this outdated belief.

Furthermore, even in ancient times when this belief was still held by the people, there was no evidence to prove that this practice was ever proven to work, although people had tried to bring back loved ones or revered leaders back to life unsuccessfully. Therefore, the practice was banned and outlawed, where it was then forgotten and only discovered again as of late.

Chanyeol thought it was interesting that in a world thought to be so discovered and explored, that there were still actually old hidden secrets such as this. However, it didn’t really concern him and to Chanyeol at the time, it was nothing more than just an interesting additional fact to know of.

 

 

After dinner and reading free books he could find online to waste away the time that evening, Chanyeol sat on the floor beside the sliding glass doors that led to the small balcony outside his apartment.

It was a cool, clear night sometime in early spring, a full season since Chanyeol and Kyungsoo had broken up with each other in the early winter.

It was still April so the temperature at night was still rather chilly even though it was temperate during the day. Chanyeol didn’t want to spend a lot of money on utility bills so he always had his heater on at a bit lower than usual temperature, making up for the cold by wearing sweaters even in indoors.

Looking up at the sky above from the glass doors of his balcony, with the view of the opposite apartment blocks in front of him, Chanyeol waited until it was exactly midnight and would check the time on his phone occasionally as midnight drew closer.

 

 

At the stroke of midnight every payday, Chanyeol’s salary would be automatically deposited into his account by the bank’s automatic scheduled transfer system. After Chanyeol confirmed receiving his pay on his phone app, he would then quickly transfer at least half of it to Kyungsoo.

This would be the third-month Chanyeol would be doing this and a few minutes after receiving the payment notification on his phone, Chanyeol had already transferred it to Kyungsoo to pay off his debts, even though he had yet to even make a small dent in the total amount.

 

After making the transfer, somehow, Chanyeol was compelled enough to check the messaging app he used to talk to Kyungsoo with.

Even though they used to live in the same house, they often texted each other back and forth when they were in their individual rooms or just in different parts of the house because they were so attached to each other.

They were always talking to each other and Chanyeol actually found it odd to adjust to having so much time not talking to Kyungsoo anymore, after he had moved out and broke up with the omega.

 

 

As Chanyeol was scrolling through the old texts, he saw that their last text message was from late December the previous year and they hadn’t talked to each other since then.

Chanyeol actually wanted to hear from Kyungsoo and ask how he was doing, but he didn’t want to incite any old feelings from himself that would make all him weak and putty simply because he knew he still loved Kyungsoo.

Chanyeol admitted he should have dealt with things better with Kyungsoo. Chanyeol believed and knew that Kyungsoo didn’t deserve that kind of resolution they had ended on and that he was unnecessarily harsh at the time because of the clout that was his feelings.

 

Chanyeol just didn’t want to feel so helpless, fragile and useless like he had when he was sold off without even knowing of the debts his parents had incurred, and how he didn’t even technically own his life now, as that still belonged to Kyungsoo on paper.

Chanyeol always believed that the one thing a person really owned was themselves, and even now he didn’t own his own life.

 

 

It was already a bit past midnight and Chanyeol wasn’t sure if Kyungsoo was still awake or already asleep. He thought of calling Kyungsoo, maybe just to make small talk, such as telling the omega that he had just made his monthly payments and then gradually flow into asking Kyungsoo how he was doing.

Chanyeol still very much loved and cared for Kyungsoo, and he was impelled to at least know how Kyungsoo was holding on, knowing that Kyungsoo had things like his heats and painful episodes to deal with.

 

Chanyeol’s thumb hovered above the call button on his phone as he kept staring at the dimming screen of his phone, debating to himself if he should press the button and make the call or otherwise.

It seemed like a good idea in his head but now when it came to actually do it, it was proven more difficult than ever. It was just one button and it was not like he never called Kyungsoo before but the implications of what happened surely did linger heavily upon Chanyeol.

 

 

Even despite the cold temperature in his apartment and how it was even cooler outside, Chanyeol began to sweat at the tip of his fingers and on the surface of his palms.

Chanyeol noticed this and accepted that he was just nervous and anxious at the thought of contacting Kyungsoo for the first time in months.

It was even peculiar that such a simple action he had done countless times before, felt almost impossible like moving a mountain out of the way.

 

Chanyeol decided to exit the messaging app to avoid thinking about it and feeling guilty, but because of his sweaty fingers, he accidentally hit the call button and he almost jumped out of surprise where he sat when he realized what he had done.

Chanyeol quickly attempted to end the call before it connected through but his even sweatier fingers now made the attempt even worse. In fact, it seemed physically impossible to do it now with wet, sweaty fingers.

Thinking of a quick solution, Chanyeol wiped his hands on his sweater to dry them off. But before he could finish doing that and return to his phone to end the call, Kyungsoo had already picked the call up.

Chanyeol had his answer now. Kyungsoo was indeed awake and he would always have his phone near him at all times.

 

 

Chanyeol silently gasped, his mouth hung open as he could only stare at the screen at Kyungsoo’s profile picture of him in a round neck shirt and glasses, as a timer was counting the amount of time their call had been connected through by the second.

“Hello? Chanyeol?” Kyungsoo’s voice softly spoke over the phone.

It was quiet enough in his apartment and surroundings for Chanyeol to hear Kyungsoo speak even when his phone was not on the loudspeaker.

 

Chanyeol didn’t know what to say and he didn’t want Kyungsoo to be left wondering why he just ended the call because Chanyeol had thought of doing that too.

“Sorry…I accidentally hit the wrong button and called you by mistake,” Chanyeol confessed, apologizing as he finally talked to Kyungsoo for the first time in months.

“I see,” Kyungsoo said after a pause, his voice still soft and his tone unchanging.

“I didn’t mean to bother you this late at night,” Chanyeol responded, “Well, then I just wanted to let you know that I’ve sent the money over to you for this month too.”

“I know,” Kyungsoo replied, “I was still working and I saw the email notification telling me about the money transfer from your account. You know you don’t have to do that if you really need the money for yourself.”

“Don’t worry, I’m managing just fine. You should worry about yourself first,” Chanyeol assured, slipping into the conversation easily when he felt how natural this was to him even after so many months apart. Now that they were talking, no part of it felt difficult at all.

“I’m doing alright myself too,” Kyungsoo claimed, “I’m glad to hear that you’re doing fine though. That makes me happy.”

“Yeah,” was all Chanyeol said in response, having a lot more things to say but restraining himself from doing so because he still remembered how much hurt he had probably caused to Kyungsoo.

“So,” Kyungsoo attempted to start a conversation, ignoring any presumed animosity that was thought to be there between them, “What have you been up to lately?”

“-just working and getting by day to day, I’m not doing much really,” Chanyeol answered, then asking, “What about you?”

“I’m pretty much the same as you. Working and everything. My parents are beginning to foray into new business ventures now that the war is over. They are planning on developing and rebuilding Antitra after the war, and maybe fund some researches going on there so I have to help them with that too,” Kyungsoo informed Chanyeol.

“Oh, that’s interesting,” Chanyeol expressed.

Kyungsoo chuckled over the phone, “It means I probably have to go out of the house more often now though and even travel to places.”

“Is that alright for you?” Chanyeol was concerned.

“I’ll manage somehow,” Kyungsoo assured, “I always have anyway.”

“I wish that you’ll be alright,” Chanyeol hoped, admitting, “I didn’t really mean all those hurtful things I said to you. I still care about you and I want nothing but for you to be okay.”

“I feel the same way about you too, Chanyeol,” Kyungsoo professed, feeling a lot lighter knowing that Chanyeol didn’t really hate him, after all. Kyungsoo was even smiling now, beaming to himself in his home office while over the phone with Chanyeol.

Chanyeol too smiled in his own small apartment by the balcony, feeling happy from just knowing that even after everything, Kyungsoo still accepted him as it is.

 

Even if they were miles away and hours apart, only connecting to each other through their voices, it was as if they could feel each other’s smiles and joy from over the phone

Kyungsoo felt like it was almost too good to be true, and was admittedly a bit nervous that this would turn out to just be a dream or a cruel prank being played on him. There was nothing along the lines of that though and it really did turn out to be real for him.

 

Chanyeol, on the other hand, was actually pleasantly surprised to hear that from Kyungsoo. Because of what he had done and knowing how cruel he had been in the fit of his anger when he broke off their relationship, Chanyeol had expected Kyungsoo to hate him. But Kyungsoo didn’t even come close to hating Chanyeol.

Chanyeol didn’t understand how someone like Kyungsoo could even exist on the face of this world that was fast-paced, merciless and its people growing ever cold and harsh. In a world where people were used and things were loved instead, Kyungsoo was like the few remaining epitomai of true unconditional love.

 

 

 

Although they had yet to meet up with each other since they began talking again a few weeks ago, Chanyeol and Kyungsoo often called or texted each other whenever they could, be it during lunch time, breaks or even when they were just sitting on the toilet.

They were now moving on from being “ex-es” to “ex-es who were talking to each other again” and seemingly getting somewhere.

Even though they didn’t meet each other every morning at the breakfast table anymore, they would always text or call each other first thing in the morning. Later at night, they would also end their days and bid each other goodnight in the same manner.

Despite being physically apart, their day was still filled with the sense of presence

 

It was as if the rift between them had never happened or even existed in the first place. Kyungsoo had chosen to forget it for the most part, although Chanyeol still skirted around the topic occasionally and still felt like he had to formally apologize for it at some point.

Chanyeol wasn’t ready to actually apologize about it to Kyungsoo yet though for a few reasons. One of those reasons was how Chanyeol was resolved to never act in such a way again even at the lowest point of his life. Once Chanyeol had apologized to Kyungsoo about that, he vowed to change and wanted to make sure he really was a changed man to keep that promise for as long as he may live.

Another reason was that Chanyeol thought Kyungsoo deserved a face-to-face apology and not one over the phone, where he could just hide from behind the screen of his phone.

 

 

 

Since they had yet to meet with each other since their reconciliation and were busy with their own jobs, it took a bit of time until they could arrange to see each other again.

Eventually, the time soon passed by until it seemed appropriate enough to mutually ask each other if they would like to meet up in person again.

 

They arranged to meet each other again on the weekend sometime in mid-April when both of them would be free.

Kyungsoo knew Chanyeol didn’t have a car and he would have to pay money for a ride all the way to his house two hours away from Seoul. Knowing that Chanyeol was saving up his money, Kyungsoo made the decision to come down to Seoul instead.

Chanyeol was worried when he heard about that at first because he knew Kyungsoo didn’t like going outside and was uncomfortable among lots of people, but Kyungsoo assured that he would be fine and he could do it for Chanyeol’s sake.

 

 

 

However, when the day came around for them to meet each other, Chanyeol received a call from Kyungsoo first thing in the morning.

Kyungsoo sounded weak and tired from over the phone. Kyungsoo apologized for not being able to come down to Seoul as he promised, and his voice cracked as he sounded like he was going to cry for being unable to fulfill his promise.

 

Chanyeol understood how Kyungsoo felt and why it was like that. It was one of those episodes again and Chanyeol was beginning to fill with rage again at this alpha that had done such a thing to Kyungsoo.

It was a good thing that they never met because Chanyeol didn’t know what he’d do to the alpha who had hurt Kyungsoo like that.

Then again, Chanyeol thought it was rather hypocritical of him to feel in such a way because he had too contributed to some of the emotional pain Kyungsoo felt too. Which was why he was going to set himself apart from that alpha and actually try to fix the damage he had caused.

                                                                                                 

 

Nonetheless, despite the bumps they had to face, they still went through to meet each other that day and instead of Kyungsoo coming down to Seoul, it was Chanyeol who was picked up by Kyungsoo’s driver and brought to the house he had left almost half a year ago.

When Chanyeol had arrived at Kyungsoo’s house- or rather- mansion that afternoon, he was greeted at the front door by the butler who looked ever the same.

The butler informed Chanyeol that Kyungsoo was waiting in his room. Chanyeol knew where Kyungsoo’s room was exactly and didn’t need to be showed the way there, especially under these circumstances, so Chanyeol declined the offer to be escorted there and went off by himself.

It wasn’t like it was his first time here. Hell, he lived here once before he let just one single moment cloud his judgment and drove him to make a decision he now lived to regret.

                                                                                                    

 

Chanyeol was still very nervous at meeting Kyungsoo again. He didn’t know what to say or do. Chanyeol still couldn’t believe he’d be even feeling this way with someone he was supposed to know so well and be so comfortable with.

Chanyeol only blamed himself for things to be the way they were at today, but his purpose of being there today was to try and make things better. Mistakes had been made and no matter how angry he got or how many more things he destroyed, there was no way he’d ever undo what had been done.

The only way to ever move forward was to accept his wrongdoings, apologize for it and learn to never make the same mistakes again. And Chanyeol was determined to do all that no matter how hard it was, even if he had to go against the entire world.

Because Kyungsoo deserved nothing but the best, and Chanyeol wanted to be the person who delivered that to him.

 

 

 

Chanyeol knocked on Kyungsoo’s door, announcing from behind the door that he had arrived and was there to meet Kyungsoo.

Kyungsoo weakly replied for Chanyeol to come in, his voice soft and barely audible because he was too weak to speak so loud yet.

 

Hearing the permission to enter, Chanyeol let himself in and kept his head down, unable to look at Kyungsoo just yet. Slowly, Chanyeol closed the door back in place, hesitating to turn around and look back at Kyungsoo’s direction.

Kyungsoo was there on his bed with a laptop on his lap and several papers sprawled on the bed. Kyungsoo was working from his bed even while unwell and not having recovered his full energy yet.

 

 

“Come here,” Kyungsoo smiled, patting the empty space beside him on his large four-poster bed.

Chanyeol did as told and sat himself down near the edge on Kyungsoo’s soft mattress, still obviously keeping his distance from Kyungsoo as much as he could. It was not because he didn’t want to be around Kyungsoo, in fact, he badly wanted, but he was just afraid because of what he had done to hurt Kyungsoo.

Chanyeol felt like he didn’t really deserve to be there, to be treated so nice and well by someone he didn’t really think twice to hurt so badly. It was like he was beginning to become this alpha that had broken the soul bond with Kyungsoo several years ago.

 

“I’m sorry you had to come out all the way here to see me. If I was feeling better, I would have gone to Seoul myself. I’m sorry for inconveniencing you,” Kyungsoo apologized, putting his laptop away to the side.

“No, it’s alright. It’s nothing for me. I wanted to meet you too,” Chanyeol expressed, still keeping his head and his gaze low, as the penguin toy Kyungsoo placed on another pillow was caught in his view. Seeing the toy and remembering what he had done to one similar toy in a fit rage brought on a whole lot of mixed emotions to Chanyeol.

“Okay,” Kyungsoo continued to smile, masking all the lingering pain because he was indeed genuinely happy to see Chanyeol there again, “You look good by the way since the last time I saw you. How have you been? How’s work and everything?”

“It’s going good,” Chanyeol answered, easing up a little, enough to look up at Kyungsoo’s eyes even if for a while, “My job is also great. The people and environment are nicer than I thought it would be. I was only planning to stay there for a year or two but the way it looks up, I think I can be permanently employed there since there’s room for career growth and advancement.”

“That sounds good,” Kyungsoo’s face lit up, as he pressed his middle finger to push his glasses up on the bridge of his nose, “I’m happy that things are looking up for you after everything. You deserve it after everything that happened. I’m proud of you, Chanyeol-”

“No-,” Chanyeol interjected, braving himself to look up and into Kyungsoo’s eyes for more than just a few seconds, “It makes me feel bad when you say that. I am nothing to be proud of. If anything, I am proud of you, Kyungsoo. We all know life had been unfair to us but you managed to keep your cool, managed to keep your head leveled and steady even after going through hell and back. You’re still you and you never lost sight of that. And for that, I am very proud of you.”

“I just did what I could. I wasn’t perfect either and I failed at times too,” Kyungsoo mentioned in response.

“I know,” Chanyeol’s voice dropped, “-but despite it all, you were still nice and kind to the world and to the people who had mistreated you, myself included. I would have never been able to do the same and I really look up to you for that.”

Kyungsoo dryly chuckled, “Well, the world is already bad enough, so I can’t just go adding more evil into it. I want this world to be a place where everyone can belong to, happy and prosperous. If I can’t be happy myself, making other people like you happy is good enough for me.”

Chanyeol began to tear up but he didn’t cry yet. In fact, he was a bit reserved at letting his tears spill and his emotions show, “When you’re like this, I can’t help but feel so much more badly for what I did to you,” Chanyeol admitted, “You’re too nice for this world, Kyungsoo. I feel like no one alive on this planet deserves you.”

“I’m just a regular person, Chanyeol, doing what I can to make things better. I can’t change the world as much as I’d like to but if I can change the world for one person, like you,” Kyungsoo mentioned, caressing Chanyeol’s hair, “-then I know that I have lived my best life and fulfilled my purpose in this world.”

“-I’m so sorry, Kyungsoo. I don’t know how I could ever make it up to you. I take back everything I said. I don’t mean it. I wasn’t thinking straight at the time,” Chanyeol pleaded, taking Kyungsoo’s hand into his, holding it down against the soft bed sheets, “Just tell me what to do. I’ll do anything for you so I can make it up to you. I’ll go to hell and back if you told me to.”

Kyungsoo began to tear up too and wiped some of the wetness that formed at the corner of his eyes with his free hand, before returning to face Chanyeol, “I accept your apology, Chanyeol, and the only one thing I want you to do is to be the best version of you. I don’t want you to be anyone else but yourself. Can you promise me that?”

“I will. I also promise that I will try to give you the best I can ever give,” Chanyeol nodded, bringing Kyungsoo’s hand up to his lips and pressing a tender kiss on the omega’s knuckles.

“I love you,” Kyungsoo declared, “I never stopped loving you even after all these years. In fact, my love for you has grown stronger ever since.”

 

Chanyeol lowered his face, finding himself unable to meet Kyungsoo’s gaze again albeit for different reasons this time. Because Chanyeol realized that there was no one else left in this tainted world who could love him this much and this unconditionally.

Chanyeol still doubted that he deserved someone like Kyungsoo but now, knowing that, he was determined to never let this opportunity ever go. It would never get better than this.

“I know,” Chanyeol murmured back softly, pressing Kyungsoo’s palm to his cheek, “I love you too.”

 

 

 

 

When Chanyeol’s probation at his workplace came to an end about two months after he was reconciled with Kyungsoo, he was offered a several years’ long contract with a raised salary to continue working at the tax firm.

Chanyeol still lived alone in Seoul in his small apartment, although he often met up with Kyungsoo over the weekends or when Kyungsoo was able to come down to Seoul.

Chanyeol had honestly never seen Kyungsoo so much happier, smiling and jovial in the past year. Kyungsoo went out of his home often, started socializing and living his life to the fullest without caring that he was a scarred soul or whatnot.

Chanyeol also soon began to realize that he was important in Kyungsoo’s life too. Kyungsoo was already a very conscientious and altruistic person by himself, but Chanyeol was this source of strength that kept him going.

 

 

 

When Kyungsoo also heard about the contract offer Chanyeol was given, Kyungsoo quickly stepped in to offer a contract of his own so Chanyeol could work for him. Kyungsoo offered a far much higher position within Chanyeol’s capabilities and an attractive and competitive salary.

Chanyeol didn’t think quite long about it before signing the contract straight away, leaving his job at the tax firm.

Chanyeol wasn’t after the position, the money or the prestige for working for a globally known company like the one Kyungsoo’s family owned.

He just wanted to be with Kyungsoo for as much as he could and for how long it was possible because they were just mortal beings whose life would eventually come to an end one day.

Nothing in this world, not even the universe is permanent. Therefore, Chanyeol had decided he wanted to spend this one life he had with Kyungsoo, changing the world even if just for Kyungsoo, in the same way, Kyungsoo had changed his.

 

 

 

For the first few months, Chanyeol returned to working with Kyungsoo at the latter’s home two hours away from Seoul. Then, they slowly made their move to the headquarters in Seoul because Kyungsoo had decided he was ready to return after hiding away from the shame of being a scarred soul for several years.

They moved into a new house in Seoul together, officially becoming boyfriends and lovers again for the third time now. This time, they took it slow and steady in order to better understand each other, learning from their previous mistakes.

 

Like Chanyeol, Kyungsoo was also trying to change himself and become a better version of himself by the day.

Chanyeol still paid back his monetary debt to Kyungsoo monthly, which Kyungsoo put aside and didn’t even touch a single cent of. Kyungsoo was planning on returning all of the money to Chanyeol one day, to tell him that there was nothing to be paid for because his presence in Kyungsoo’s life had been far more valuable.

 

 

 

In Seoul, working at the main headquarters alongside Kyungsoo, Chanyeol also soon became acquainted with Kyungsoo’s parents and older brother.

They were much like him too, all nice and looking out for others. Chanyeol also seemed to get well along with them and after they heard what he had been through, they quickly accepted Chanyeol like one of their own too.

Kyungsoo’s family was also very supportive of his relationship with Chanyeol. Sometimes, when they were being very nice to him, Chanyeol would feel guilty when it made him remember what he had put Kyungsoo through, as he questioned himself if he really deserved this amount of kindness.

Whenever Chanyeol doubted himself, Kyungsoo would always be there to remind him that he was worth it, and Chanyeol would try even harder to show that he really was deserving of what he had achieved today.

 

 

 

Almost a year later, since they got back together, Chanyeol nervously called Yoora in the middle of the night while Kyungsoo was still asleep in their shared bed.

Chanyeol needed to talk to his older sister about this matter as she was more experienced on the subject than he was. He wanted Yoora to be the first to know about this, before telling Kyungsoo’s parents and his older brother about his plans.

It was afternoon for Yoora in the United States so this was the only opportunity he’d get to do so, especially now that Kyungsoo was asleep and wouldn’t be overhearing this exchange.

Chanyeol was a bit anxious as to how to proceed with this and how to actually enact it. Chanyeol’s 29th birthday was coming in two weeks. He had bought an engagement ring and he was planning to propose to Kyungsoo on his birthday.

 

 

Two weeks later, on his 29th birthday, after talking and going up and down about the topic with Yoora and Kyungsoo’s family who gave him the approval, Chanyeol went down on one knee during his birthday dinner and proposed to Kyungsoo at the fancy restaurant they had reserved for the night.

Kyungsoo thought Chanyeol was joking at first, but the look and sincerity in Chanyeol’s eyes told him otherwise. Kyungsoo knew and felt it but it was that moment that made him really believe that he too deserved to be loved, in the same way, he loved the people around him.

Kyungsoo said yes and they didn’t wait long to get married, just a day after Kyungsoo’s own 29th birthday in the following January.

 

 

The wedding ceremony was attended by even the man with the gold chains, who had sold off Chanyeol and was only invited for business obligations and sake. He went up to pat Chanyeol on the back and called him the “best case” of someone who had been sold because he had gone on and ended up getting married to his buyer.

Chanyeol never learned that man’s name and he didn’t bother to know now either. That was all behind him.

Chanyeol and Kyungsoo both ignored that. There was a larger story behind it but they could care less now on their happiest day.

 

 

 

Right after the wedding ceremony, they left right away for their honeymoon at a ski resort. It was winter too so the timing was right to go to such a place.

They had arrived at night time and were too tired after spending the entire day entertaining guests at their wedding.

 

 

In their room at the ski resort, in the pale and dimmed soft yellow lights, with the snow softly falling outside their window, Chanyeol carefully and gently undressed Kyungsoo who joined him on the bed.

Earlier that day, they had made their relationship official in the eyes of the law. Now was the time to mate and make it official to their souls, to show that they were now ready to indeed become soul mates for life.

 

 

Chanyeol was unbuttoning the front of Kyungsoo’s shirt but his hands were trembling and his fingers slightly clumsy. It was not like the first time they had or would be having sex, but this was their first time since getting married and they had already planned to seal their souls together after this, so to Chanyeol, it was a very big deal indeed.

“It’s okay,” Kyungsoo smiled, seeing Chanyeol fidget around with the buttons on his dress shirt. Kyungsoo placed a reassuring hand on top of Chanyeol’s, “I can do it.”

Kyungsoo leaned in, tilting his face sideways and pressing his lips ever so close to Chanyeol’s, his breath warm against the cold surrounding them outside.

 

Chanyeol was partly relieved and partly aroused at Kyungsoo deciding to take over and take control of the moment. Chanyeol was the alpha but sometimes he too loved when Kyungsoo took charge of lovemaking. There was just something so unexplainably arousing about that to Chanyeol.

Kyungsoo scooted up closer to Chanyeol, straddling Chanyeol’s lap and long legs as he wrapped his arms behind the alpha’s neck, deepening their kiss.

 

When they parted for air, they were both lightly panting and gasping with mouths open and a trail of saliva connecting them over the small gap between their lips.

Chanyeol knew exactly where Kyungsoo liked to be touched and where the omega was most sensitive, and that place was at his nape, where Kyungsoo’s hairline ended and his neck began. Exploiting this spot on Kyungsoo’s body would always give Chanyeol the reaction he craved from Kyungsoo, and it was also a plus for Kyungsoo who liked to be touched there very much.

 

While Kyungsoo was still deeply kissing him, Chanyeol snaked his hand behind Kyungsoo’s neck and towards the latter’s nape as he tugged his fingers on the short fine hairs that grew there.

Kyungsoo moaned, tilting his head back and breaking away from the kiss as his eyes flew wide open, staring back at Chanyeol who was gazing back at him with half-lidded eyes filled with lust.

“Is this okay?” Chanyeol cautiously asked, with his hand still resting on the back of Kyungsoo’s nape.

“Of course,” Kyungsoo breathily sighed.

 

With the consent, Chanyeol didn’t even need to wait for a second more to attack Kyungsoo’s throat. Chanyeol latched his lips and hence mouth onto Kyungsoo’s Adam apple, pulling Kyungsoo’s head back by the hair on his nape.

Kyungsoo gulped, shocked but also excited at the sudden action. Kyungsoo with his head tilted back, gulped, and Chanyeol grazed his teeth against the distention caused by Kyungsoo’s Adam apple bobbing inside his throat.

 

 

Kyungsoo only pulled away, lightly pushing Chanyeol off of him so he could finish undressing and then discarding his clothing onto the wooden floor beside the bed, before helping Chanyeol undress too.

Kyungsoo then returned to straddle Chanyeol, sitting on the alpha’s lap where their crotches were pressing so dangerously close to each other without a single thread of fabric in their way. 

 

They kissed again, this time sloppier with a lot more tongue and passion involved. Chanyeol moved a hand between their flushed chests, cupping Kyungsoo’s flat breast in one hand before breaking away from the kiss to press his lips elsewhere.

Kyungsoo giggled, looking down at Chanyeol as the warmth on his mouth moved to his nipple. Chanyeol sucked and engulfed Kyungsoo’s pink nipple into his mouth, licking and swirling his tongue around it as his hand squeezed and toyed with the supple flesh.

 

 

Kyungsoo’s legs were spread apart at each side as he was straddling Chanyeol while they were both sitting up on the bed. Chanyeol’s cock was now beginning to swell and get hard. He could now feel Chanyeol’s engorged erection getting bigger, pressed up against him.

While Chanyeol was busy attending to the other breast now, Kyungsoo rubbed his hand along the length of Chanyeol’s hard cock, stroking and giving it the much-wanted attention.

“Do you like this?” Kyungsoo purred near Chanyeol’s ear, breathing hot air against the latter’s earlobe as he continued gripping and twisting his right hand on Chanyeol’s cock.

 

Chanyeol did not give a verbal response in return but Kyungsoo didn’t need to hear it said to know what Chanyeol’s answer was.

Chanyeol unlatched his mouth from Kyungsoo’s breast and flipped their positions, pushing Kyungsoo down on his back on the bed.

Kyungsoo landed on the bed with his head on the pillow and his hands splayed to his sides, not really expecting that kind of reaction from Chanyeol but still turned on nonetheless.

Kyungsoo had his brief moment of control. Now, Chanyeol was going to show him who the alpha was.

 

 

Kyungsoo didn’t need to be told do so and instinctively spread his legs wide and apart when Chanyeol moved down to press his face close to his groin.

Kyungsoo’s hole was wet, slick and engorged with arousal. Meanwhile, his smaller but equally hard cock was now erect and pressed up against his stomach.

“Ah,” Kyungsoo moaned, throwing his head back against the white down pillow as his shoulders tensed and his back arched when Chanyeol ran his wet tongue up along the length of his cock.

 

Chanyeol held Kyungsoo’s legs apart with hands firm on his inner thighs as Kyungsoo continued to moan and bite on his own lip, especially when Chanyeol swallowed the entire length of Kyungsoo’s cock so easily into his own mouth. It was so easy for Chanyeol to do this because Kyungsoo was smaller.

Chanyeol wanted to say something too but his mouth was a bit occupied now but he certainly loved the sounds and reaction Kyungsoo was making beneath him right now.

 

 

When Chanyeol pressed two fingers into Kyungsoo’s hole while his mouth attended to the omega’s leaking cock, Kyungsoo almost bit his tongue at the sudden shockwave of pleasure that ran through his entire being.

“No, no more,” Kyungsoo writhed, moving upwards the bed and away from Chanyeol.

Chanyeol did as told, removing his fingers and mouth from Kyungsoo. “Is there anything wrong?” Chanyeol asked, concerned if something was up.

Kyungsoo shook his head, face red and flushed, “N-no. It feels so good. It’s just that-,” Kyungsoo moved his hand between his legs to spread and display his wet hole open to Chanyeol, “I just want you to put it in me now, please. Hurry, no more teasing. I can’t take it.”

Chanyeol chuckled, shaking his head slightly, “You got me worried a bit there but you’re just plain straight up horny, aren’t you?”

 

Kyungsoo spread his legs even wider, pressing the limbs to his chest and holding it open as he presented himself to Chanyeol as ready to be fucked and mated.

Chanyeol couldn’t help but oblige as he positioned his cock near Kyungsoo’s entrance.

“Are you ready?” Chanyeol asked, his voice heavy as his body began to heat up especially in his face.

“Yes,” Kyungsoo squealed, as he felt the head of Chanyeol’s cock press inside past the ring of muscles.

“Ugh, you’re so tight,” Chanyeol commented, thrusting his cock in and out of Kyungsoo, unable to hold back himself.

 

Kyungsoo moaned, his tongue hanging out as he panted almost as if he was on heat and craving alpha cock more than ever at the time. Kyungsoo’s eyes were heavy and his entire body was blushed like his face was.

“Ah,” Kyungsoo moaned, his breath caught as he drew it out thanks to the pounding Chanyeol was giving him as he was being pounded into the mattress.

Kyungsoo continued to hold his legs spread apart and open for Chanyeol as he felt the alpha knot forming and growing even larger inside him.

 

“It’s so good,” Kyungsoo breathed, letting go of his legs so he could stretch his arms above and ahead of him to hold Chanyeol in his embrace as he begged, “Please, let me hold you.”

“Of course,” Chanyeol obliged, helping Kyungsoo into a sitting position all while the omega was still impaled on his thick cock.

They returned to their position from earlier on, with Kyungsoo straddling Chanyeol’s lap, but this time letting Chanyeol take control like the alpha he was.

“Hurry and fuck me,” Kyungsoo sighed into Chanyeol’s ear, wrapping his arms around Chanyeol’s shoulders.

 

Chanyeol didn’t need to be instructed because that was what he would do anyway. Chanyeol thrust up and deep inside Kyungsoo, hitting that sweet spot without any warning, drawing the loudest moan from Kyungsoo that night.

Chanyeol didn’t care if the people from the room next door heard them going at it. In fact, he was so smitten and in love with Kyungsoo, he would have the world know and see how far he would go for this love.

It was made even better when the position made Kyungsoo clench down and add the pressure onto Chanyeol’s cock.

 

“I’m so close,” Kyungsoo yelped as Chanyeol kept thrusting up into him, pistoning in and out of his hole. At the rate they were going, Kyungsoo would cum anytime soon, and he didn’t want that happening too fast yet.

Kyungsoo pushed Chanyeol back down onto the bed, letting the alpha fall and lie onto the bed sheets beneath without letting the cock inside him slip out.

In this position, where he could ride Chanyeol out hard and slow, Kyungsoo was able to feel Chanyeol’s balls pressed up against the back of his ass while he was so stretched and full with the cock.

 

 

They joined their sweaty hands and wrapped their fingers around each other, holding it up between their bodies as Kyungsoo raised his hips and then bounced back down on Chanyeol’s cock.

Kyungsoo stifled back his moan and closed his eyes, saying how good it felt as he continued to ride up and down Chanyeol’s knot. Chanyeol kept his eyes open, watching the entire thing and just letting Kyungsoo take over because it was not like he’d stop becoming an alpha all of a sudden by letting it happen.

 

When Kyungsoo leaned down to kiss Chanyeol, the alpha took the opportunity to scrape his nails on that sensitive spot on Kyungsoo’s nape.

Almost instantly, Kyungsoo came, clenching and quivering on Chanyeol’s cock as the former’s hips stilled. Kyungsoo collapsed, lying on top of Chanyeol who continued thrusting up into him as he chased his own orgasm which finally came down crushing on him in a sudden wave.

Chanyeol grunted, breathing heavily and out loud with Kyungsoo on top of him, as he spilled cum into Kyungsoo and the knot began to form, locking the both of them into place for a while now.

 

Once Chanyeol had regained his breath, he flipped their positions again but carefully this time because they were still knotted to each other.

Chanyeol pressed his face close near Kyungsoo’s neck as he muttered, “Are you ready now?”

Kyungsoo, thoroughly sated and fucked, was gazing up at the ceiling with rather hazy eyes but his mind was clear and of sound judgment at the time.

“Yes,” Kyungsoo answered, wrapping his arms even tighter around Chanyeol, “Please make me your soul mate.”

 

With that being said, Chanyeol bit into the skin and thin flesh on the side of Kyungsoo’s neck, biting hard to break the skin and draw blood to claim Kyungsoo as his.

Kyungsoo almost choked. It hurt and stung a little but this pain would be worth it, Kyungsoo knew. He had waited for this moment for so long and he was finally proud to call himself Chanyeol’s omega.

 

Together, they watched as the scar on Kyungsoo’s arm faded and a new mark formed in its place, as a similar one too appeared on Chanyeol’s forearm. They were now mates for life, for as long as time would allow them to be together.

 

 


	4. 4/4

 

Within the first six months of their marriage, Kyungsoo and Chanyeol were sent abroad to the ancient cave in Antitra which had been an ancient ritual site thousands of years ago.

The Do family’s industry had claimed ownership over the ancient ritual site, which was granted to them by the new government of the country for aiding them with weaponry during the war.

Due to the sensation of the discovery and how the relics were falling into the hands of a private company instead of being protected a heritage site, Kyungsoo had also arranged for part of the relics to be donated for academia, only so the archaeologists and professors would shut up about it.

 

 

The ancient cave was accessible by a manmade tunnel at the base of the mountain, hidden over time by landslides and topographical shifts, which were later revealed due to the bombs that exploded in the area during the war.

The cave itself composed of just a single chamber, which was taller than it was wider and could comfortably fit up to twenty adults in the same space. The cave was now filled with lighting and modern research equipment while the process of transferring all the relics was taking place.

 

Everyone authorized to enter the cave had to be dressed in special protective suits and masks. The cave was also properly temperature and thermoregulated so as to protect the relics from being damaged.

Kyungsoo and Chanyeol were sent to oversee the operations to retrieve the relics from the cave and transport it all the way back to Seoul for research purposes. At the same time, Kyungsoo was also entertaining two renowned archaeologists from top world universities, who were invited to have a tour of the site.

 

 

As the husband of one of the heirs of the world’s largest weapon manufacturers, Chanyeol had been given a position on the board of directors to the company and was now pretty much used to being in such an authoritative position.

But now, Chanyeol chose to leave the expedition to be managed by an expert team they had hired to ensure that the relics would be in pristine condition while it was being gathered before being properly shipped off to the laboratory in Seoul.

 

Chanyeol merely watched and listened to the experts talk and carry out the operation, observing the relics and the ancient ritual site since it was his first time there too.

The relics consisted of stone tablets with writings on it, which had yet to be deciphered due to it being in an extinct ancient language. Several ancient artifacts such as pottery, jewelry, and outdated tools were also found stored in the cave. There were also carvings and well-preserved paintings on the wall which Chanyeol described to be stick-like figures.

 

 

As Chanyeol was observing the painted walls in symbols and drawings he could not understand, a female researcher in her middle age approached Chanyeol and joined him in viewing the historical artifact.

“Do you want to know what the painting means?” The researcher asked Chanyeol, speaking over the built-in communication system within their protective suits.

“Sure, I have no idea what it is,” Chanyeol pointed to the wall, “I think those look like people and they seem to be in some sort of praying figure I think? And up there in the sky, that’s probably the sun but its painted black.”

“You’re right. The sun is indeed painted black but the people you see there aren’t praying. They are actually dead, sacrificed. The ritual states that a lot of people have to be killed to bring back just one person from the dead. And when the ritual is carried out, the sun will turn black,” The researcher answered.

Just then, Kyungsoo walked up to the both of them and chimed in, “I always wondered. If they had to kill tens if not hundreds of people just to bring one person back, then that person must have been very important to them.”

Chanyeol smiled the moment he saw Kyungsoo beside him.

“Indeed,” The researcher affirmed, “It was believed that the ancient people of this land used this ritual to bring back their beloved leader who had protected their lands against the threat of others. It was said that an entire village was sacrificed to bring their leader back.”

“Does it really work through? Can people really come back from the dead? I’ve heard about the myth of the leader who was brought back from the dead but for all we know, it could have been just a tale which had been passed down over the years,” Chanyeol was skeptical, turning to Kyungsoo, “Do you really think that could have been true?”

“I don’t know,” Kyungsoo shook his head slightly, continuing to look at the wall paintings, “I can’t tell for sure but it seemed like the people of this land must have looked up and loved their leader so much to be willing to give their lives so he could live again.”

“I know right. Times have changed indeed,” Chanyeol scoffed, “Nowadays; people hate politicians and leaders so much. Even if it worked, I doubt it would be done today because nobody would be lining up to give their lives.”

“Maybe,” Kyungsoo continued to gaze upon the relic, his eyes focused on it but his mind adrift in a far off place.

 

 

 

Kyungsoo and Chanyeol spent another week in the foreign country before leaving to Seoul; together with all the relics that now belonged to the Do family’s weapon manufacturing industry.

 

It was a bit curious as to why a weapon manufacturing and designing empire would suddenly be so interested in historical artifacts.

Internet jokes and conspiracy theories even began circulating around the internet, about how the Do family actually believed the ancient myths of resurrection connected to the relics and how they were going to weaponize it.

Hardly anyone believed that it was possible to bring people back from the dead. It was the one thing technology and science research had yet to achieve, so it didn’t seem plausible that some ancient civilization from thousands of years ago could have done better.

The jokes merely stayed as such and as popular theories for people to debunk one after the other. The Do family remained on the internet as some rich, conglomerate family with weird beliefs.

 

 

Chanyeol heard of the jokes too but he didn’t pay much heed to it, even though Kyungsoo abruptly moved from dealing with finance into the research of the ancient relics.

So what if Kyungsoo and his family wanted to believe that it was possible to bring back the dead to life even if Chanyeol personally didn’t think so? Unlike the weapons they produced, this was practically harmless and they could afford to support such an outlandish belief anyway.

 

Chanyeol could care less whether it was really true or not because he knew that the smile on Kyungsoo’s face was the only real thing he cared for.

 

 

 

 

In late November, ten months into their marriage and just a few days before Chanyeol’s 30th birthday, when it had just begun to snow for the first time that year; Chanyeol and Kyungsoo were greeted by the good news that they were expecting a baby soon.

Kyungsoo knew his body well enough to notice the changes and suspect them as pregnancy symptoms. After a quick check-up, Kyungsoo was announced to be six weeks pregnant with a baby due in the summer next year.

 

It was a nice coincidence because Kyungsoo’s brother’s wife was also expecting a baby of their own, due a month ahead of them.

Even Yoora, Chanyeol’s sister, had begun planning in advance to take a long leave from work around Kyungsoo’s due date so she could fly to South Korea and meet her niece or nephew.

Everyone in the family was excited and looking forward to welcoming the two new babies in the following year.

 

 

 

When Kyungsoo’s own 30th birthday came around in January, he was over three months pregnant by then. Kyungsoo still experienced morning sickness, although they gradually got less bad as each week passed by.

Kyungsoo still found himself lying down in bed throughout the morning, waiting for the awful nauseous feeling to go away. He would only start working in the noon and leave later in the night to make up for it.

 

It was snowing flurries outside that January morning when Chanyeol came back into the room with a tray of food cooked by their helper. It was porridge, Kyungsoo’s go-to food for when he was feeling sick.

“Good morning, birthday boy,” Chanyeol greeted, setting the tray down on the bed as he helped Kyungsoo into a comfortable sitting position.

“Thank you,” Kyungsoo chuckled, a bit weak, “I’m sorry for troubling you.”

“Kyungsoo…” Chanyeol reminded, “How many times do I have to tell you that you aren’t troubling me at all?”

“I know,” Kyungsoo acknowledged, “I guess it just reminded me of older times when I used to get sick a lot and you’d help me around.”

“Speaking of older times, I still remember that I owe you a lot of money,” Chanyeol brought up, plopping down on the bed beside Kyungsoo.

“With the access to the funds you have now on the board of directors, you can pay me back with interest any day now,” Kyungsoo teased, bringing the spoonful of porridge to his mouth.

“I can do that now if you want me too,” Chanyeol laughed along, picking up the penguin toy lying somewhere on the bed.

Kyungsoo had all the money in the world to even buy his own toy company but the one Chanyeol had won for him from a claw machine, remained as his favorite one until this day. Kyungsoo slept with it every night and Chanyeol had even joked that he was the third wheel between the toy and Kyungsoo.

 

 

While Kyungsoo was eating on the bed, Chanyeol brought the penguin toy to Kyungsoo’s clothed and still rather flat stomach. Kyungsoo hadn’t begun to show, although a small bump was forming and visible if observed well enough.

Chanyeol rested the penguin toy on Kyungsoo’s stomach, making it appear as if the plush toy was hugging Kyungsoo.

“You can’t wait to be a father, aren’t you?” Kyungsoo expressed, smiling between spoonfuls of eating the porridge.

“Of course, I can’t wait. The baby is going to be both a part of me and you in a person. I wish my parents were here to see their grandchild too,” Chanyeol reminisced.

“I’m sure if they were here, they’d be proud of the person you are today,” Kyungsoo held onto Chanyeol’s hand, assuring his husband.

“I know,” Chanyeol smiled a bit solemnly, slightly lowering his head down, before he then joked, “Maybe you could try to bring them back with the research on the relics you’re partaking in now?”

Kyungsoo chuckled, “-if it actually is true and it works, I’ll let you know.”

 

Chanyeol laughed too, thinking that Kyungsoo was just joking along with him. Chanyeol wasn’t the least bit serious about believing that it was possible to resurrect people from the dead.

Kyungsoo wanted to believe it, although he lacked the evidence and further research to back it up. Because the only thing Kyungsoo feared the most in the world other than being alone was having to lose Chanyeol. Not especially after they had gotten this far and achieved this much. Kyungsoo wanted to believe that he finally got the deserved happiness he had worked hard to attain for so long.

 

 

 

 

But maybe, Kyungsoo should have been more specific with how he intended to continue along this path of happiness because the universe wasn’t particularly kind to him; judging by the unfairness and hurt he had to go through which weren’t necessarily his fault.

 

On a rainy night in late April, a heavily pregnant Kyungsoo and Chanyeol had just finished having dinner at a restaurant. Because of the heavy rain, Chanyeol had insisted that their bodyguard take Kyungsoo back first to the car with an umbrella.

Chanyeol chose to wait in the restaurant lobby, waiting for the bodyguard to come back after walking Kyungsoo to the car.

 

 

Chanyeol’s hand were in the pockets of his coat as he looked out from the restaurant’s glass doors, as several black cars with tinted glasses screeched and pulled up at the driveway, blocking their car from leaving.

Chanyeol was initially confused as to what was going on until he heard gunshots being fired outside under the heavy rain. In the restaurant, people screamed and hid upon hearing the gunshots outside.

A waiter tried pulling Chanyeol away from the door and asking him to hide. But there was no way he’d go to hide now when Kyungsoo was out there. Chanyeol pushed the waiter away, telling him to hide instead as he could hear the receptionist sobbing behind the front desk as she was calling the police.

 

 

The whole exchange of gunfire ended as quick as it happened and by the time Chanyeol could run into the cold rain, the cars were screeching on the asphalt, leaving the place.

Chanyeol rushed to their own car to see their driver dead outside the car and the bodyguard dead on the pavement. The rear passenger door was still swung wide open.

Panicked and fearing the worst, Chanyeol looked into the car to see Kyungsoo lying on the seat with a hand over his protruding pregnant belly.

 

Kyungsoo was still alive and conscious but shot several times and bleeding profusely. Chanyeol’s hand shook when he saw how much blood there was. The stench of blood permeated the air and if it wasn’t dark, Chanyeol would have gotten sick from just seeing it all.

He wanted to do something; anything but he wasn’t able to in the midst of fear of loss.

 

It was the people from the restaurant who had come out into the cold rain when they heard about people being shot, who helped to stop the bleeding that Kyungsoo sustained until the paramedics arrived.

A woman also helped pull Chanyeol aside and comforted him, asking him if he wanted to call anybody.

Chanyeol was barely able to talk. He was only coherent enough to dial a number in his phone and have someone else talk to tell Kyungsoo’s parents what had happened.

Soon it was almost impossible to talk whatnot with the police and ambulance sirens, helicopters, chatters of the news reporters and cries of the people who were relieved to be reunited with their families, except for Chanyeol and the family of their deceased bodyguard and driver.

 

 

 

Kyungsoo was seven months pregnant at the time and the unborn baby had also suffered gunshot wounds which hit Kyungsoo in the stomach.

The doctors were forced to deliver the baby, a girl, through surgery. Neither Chanyeol nor Kyungsoo ever got to hold, lest to even name her because their daughter died within the first 24 hours of her life.

Three days later, after only being awake for a few hours at most since the incident, Kyungsoo died in the hospital due to complications, with Chanyeol and the rest of his family at his side.

 

                                                                                                                                  

 

 

The Do family funded the funeral and chose to bore upon the expenses of the family left behind by their bodyguard and driver who had died on the same night.

A funeral service was also held for their deceased infant daughter. For Kyungsoo, they held a memorial service but he wasn’t given a funeral. His body was cryogenically frozen and preserved as per Chanyeol’s wishes.

 

Chanyeol’s actions were questioned. Some debated the ethics behind his decision to keep Kyungsoo suspended in animation because the technology to revive a person in such a state would not exist for a few hundred more years if ever.

Others were left to wonder if Chanyeol was still in denial about Kyungsoo’s death.

 

 

The police didn’t take long to catch those responsible for the murders. They were the remaining followers of the former terrorist group who was a belligerent during the war.

Apparently, the remaining followers still held a grudge to the Do family for supplying the peacekeepers with weaponry during the war and had decided to take out their revenge by targeting Kyungsoo that night.

Chanyeol refused to attend the court trials of the murderers and hid away from the public eye since the death of his daughter and husband.

 

 

 

If Chanyeol didn’t believe that people could be brought back from the dead, he really wanted to believe that now.

Chanyeol continued on with Kyungsoo’s research on the ancient relics, where he hired all the top researchers and experts around the world to help him prove that he could indeed resurrect the dead.

But above it all, Chanyeol was doing this for Kyungsoo.

 

 

Kyungsoo had suffered a lot throughout his life and went through hardships he didn’t necessarily deserve. He was a good person with bad things happening to him.

Chanyeol was angry at the world for the mistreatment Kyungsoo had to face, so much that he could care less about how many people would die in the process. He didn’t care if the world ended because to him it already had happened that cold rainy night.

Even at the end of Kyungsoo’s life, he died a tragic death and couldn’t get the happy ending that he should have gotten. Therefore, Chanyeol was going to all lengths to make sure Kyungsoo finally got his happy ending.

 

Chanyeol had decided that he would rather live in hell alongside Kyungsoo rather than be alone in heaven.

 

 

 

 

 

It started out as an average day in the summer of 2052, about a year-and-a-half since Kyungsoo’s death.

 

Like every single day on earth; some babies were born, some people died, some people got married, some people found new jobs, some people celebrated a birthday, and some people were ending a chapter in their lives.

That day was different though. While it was still high noon in Seoul and the time zones surrounding it, the sun turned black and almost everyone alive around the world- dropped dead.

 

Over 9 billion humans died, killing 90% of the human population in a single day that would be known as the “Apocalypse”.

When the sun went back to normal the next day, the bodies of the dead soon became reanimated as zombies, forcing the survivors into hiding or running and further dwindling down their numbers.

 

 

 

Chanyeol had prepared for the day by hiding in a safe house deep in the woods. Kyungsoo’s body was transported there with the necessary equipment and backup generators for power to keep his body frozen.

Chanyeol watched through the window as the sun turned black when he completed the ritual by reading the ancient scriptures and offering up an amount of his blood and the one he intended to resurrect- Kyungsoo.

 

Chanyeol also continued to watch, not feeling anything, as the assistants in the safe house with him began to drop dead one by one before they were reanimated again as zombies.

But Kyungsoo had still to wake up yet.

 

 

Chanyeol tried to fend off his former assistant turned zombies, protecting Kyungsoo’s body against them. In the midst of the struggle, Chanyeol found himself surrounded and cornered into defeat.

Then, everything went black and Chanyeol believed that he would suffer a fate similar to them because this was his sin for causing such a thing to the world.

 

However, when Chanyeol came to again, the sun was shining brightly outside as normal. The zombies in the safe house were no longer there, seemingly eradicated by someone or something.

And one thing for sure was that he definitely wasn’t dead or a zombie either.

 

Chanyeol panicked when he didn’t find Kyungsoo’s body where it was supposed to be, dashing madly around the house for some answers.

Then, Chanyeol found Kyungsoo, very much alive and standing in the kitchen while drinking a glass of water as if nothing had just happened and he didn’t just come back from being dead for over a year.

 

 

Chanyeol was overjoyed to see that the Antitra cave relics indeed worked and that it was really possible to resurrect people from the dead. Chanyeol was even happier to finally see Kyungsoo alive again.

Chanyeol’s happiness was cut short by Kyungsoo’s expression of disappointment at what he had done and the effect it had on the world.

 

During Kyungsoo’s own research on the relics, he had discovered that resurrecting a person from the dead not only would sacrifice the lives of many others but also cause an unexplained disease to reanimate their corpses as flesh-hungry zombies, while also posing a constant threat to the survivors.

Above that, the resurrected person and the one responsible for it would be cursed with immortality, never to die until the violent end of the world, when they would wish they were long dead by then.

 

 

 

Chanyeol’s actions of bringing Kyungsoo back to life caused strife in their relationship. Kyungsoo was against the impersonal killing of billions which Chanyeol had just done because Kyungsoo didn’t believe he was worth that much collateral damage.

In the midst of anger and not being understood, Chanyeol lashed out at Kyungsoo, saying that he wasn’t one to speak about such matters when his family had been responsible for the death of millions with their weapons and also how Kyungsoo was the one who started the research on resurrection anyway.

But the damage had been done and no amount of fighting and disagreement would ever change that.

 

 

Despite the strife, Chanyeol and Kyungsoo realized that they had to do stop pointing fingers and shifting the blame, so they could work on saving the remaining humans.

With weaponry and resources from the Do Industries, Kyungsoo and Chanyeol contributed to arming the humans against the zombies while others worked on finding a vaccine for the diseases and building a secure settlement.

 

 

 

When the first walled cities were completed and the vaccine began to be administered to the survivors in the first few years after the Apocalypse; Kyungsoo and Chanyeol went their separate ways.

All of Kyungsoo’s family had perished and he never knew what their fates were, whether they became zombies or were killed and then eaten by the zombies. Yoora and her husband survived and now lived in a walled city somewhere in the mountain ranges of Colorado, one of the major human settlements on the North American continent.

After such loss and disagreement, it was hard Kyungsoo and Chanyeol to be together especially in such a desolate world with so much buildup resentment against each other despite how much they were still in love.

 

                                                                                                                                                      

Chanyeol stayed on in the walled city of Hong Kong to help and train the humans in the fight against the zombies, using his leverage as being immortal to help those who were suffering because of what he had done.

Kyungsoo, on the other hand, traveled the forsaken planet to find the other two immortal beings, who were the supposed ancient resurrected leader and the one responsible for it- from the ancient scriptures on the relics.

 

 

Kyungsoo traveled the world in search of them, wearing a black cape and with a sword he carried on his back. Along the way, he would help any survivors he met along the way, rescuing and bringing them back to safety while convincing them to move into walled cities.

This earned Kyungsoo the fame and nickname of the mysterious ‘traveling swordsman’, who was considered as a hero by the survivors he saved.

 

 

 

 

Over time, Kyungsoo had become some sort of an enigma and some even doubted his existence, calling him a mere urban legend created by the passing times. Those who did believe of Kyungsoo made him up to be a strong, brave and valiant alpha that helped people in need, not knowing who he really was.

 

Now, twenty years later since the day of the Apocalypse, it is not known if Kyungsoo ever found the two other immortals he had been looking for or what he was up to these days.

But it is known that Kyungsoo continued living outside the walls, looking for survivors in need of help and zombies in need of eradication.

 

 

Kyungsoo was almost always outside the walls but every now and then, he would come into the Hong Kong walled city for a while. Not many knew what it is he did there and who he was meeting as he usually slipped into the city under the cover of the night by the aid of the guards who were now familiar with him, only to leave even before sunrise of the next day.

And only Chanyeol knew why.

 

 

 

**

 

 

 

 _With the truck of eight survivors fast approaching and the horde of zombies closing in rapidly on them, Chanyeol remained calm and steady on the bridge connecting the Hong Kong Island from the mainland. The massive wall that secured the city loomed behind him, standing tall and sturdy, guarding the millions of lives within them from the threat of flesh-eating zombies._  
  
_It had been a clear morning but clouds were beginning to form in the sky above, leaving the landscape and surroundings looking rather grey. The wind blowing across the causeway, coming from the glistening sea and passing over the bridge was cool and somehow, Chanyeol could smell it in the air as if a storm was approaching them soon, literally and maybe even figuratively._  
  
  
  
_As if everything came to a standstill, it was silent for a short while. The air was calm, the wind ceased to blow and not even the ripple of waves below the bridge could be heard._

_It was far from being calm, however. The air felt thick of tension and the prospect of an imminent battle of humans against the cause of their almost extinction._

  
_Like the calm before a storm, the moment only lasted for so long before Chanyeol heard the static over his earpiece crackling as the voice of a familiar soldier within the artillery tower was relaying information over to him._

  
  
_"Captain!" The soldier in charge of communications within the wall tower announced, "The survivor truck is now within sight and is approaching the kill zone of the artillery guns in ETA 90 seconds. At this rate, the zombie horde, estimated to be in the few thousands, in pursuit of them will approach the kill zone within ETA 130 seconds, leaving us with a less than one minute window to let the survivors within the wall. The team to receive them are ready are on standby within the quarantine zone as we speak," The communications soldier informed._  
  
_"40 seconds," Chanyeol muttered, "That should be enough for us to raise the barricades and let the survivors into the quarantine zone and then close it back fast again before the zombies can get through...usually. But we're speaking about thousands of zombies in pursuit of the survivors."_  
  
_As Chanyeol stopped to think fast, the communications soldier in a more rushed and alarmed voice, loudly announced into his ear, "Captain! The survivors; ETA 45 seconds. Zombie horde; ETA 90 seconds. The zombies seem to be slowing down a bit for now."_

_"I know I know," Chanyeol mentioned rather casually, despite the more than official business he was at during the moment, "I can see them already from where I'm standing. I can see the zombies too. I can give you guys in there 30 seconds to a minute at most to get everyone in and reseal the barricade through the wall."_

_"Affirmative. They're in the kill zone. Captain, do we fire now!?" The soldier in the communications tower awaited the order._

_"No, hold your fire," Chanyeol halted them, putting his left hand up to one of the surveillance cameras on the bridge as his right hand drew out the sword sheathed on his waist._

_Chanyeol unsheathed his sword, holding it in a stance and ready to strike down his enemies- zombies in particular. The battered but somehow, still moving truck was very much visible speeding down the length of the bridge._

_The headlights on the truck were flashing and the horn was being pressed down loud so others would be alerted of their arrival- as if the soldiers in the wall weren’t well informed of it._

_The rumbling and sputtering of the truck engine were now heard, crackling as it was being driven at full speed down the length of the bridge, echoing off the sturdy walls about less than 400 meters from where Chanyeol was standing._

_Sure, the world had almost ended because of what he had done and human society had drastically if not completely changed since then. But Chanyeol still knew better than to stand in the way of an incoming and fast-moving vehicle._

_Chanyeol stepped out of the way, moving onto another lane on the bridge when he saw the truck approaching, so it could pass by without him getting run over. Then again, Chanyeol could probably get run over by a truck and still survive thanks to the cure of immortality he was bestowed- or rather- cursed with. He would still have to deal with the injuries after that though even if he survived._

_Honestly thinking, Chanyeol was impressed that the truck carrying the survivors in such conditions was still able to function in the state it was in. Now two decades after the apocalypse, whatever vehicles were left outside the walled cities were practically ancient and beyond its usable life span._

_The truck whizzed by him, speeding and leaving behind a gust of wind that messed up his hair and rustled the fabric material of his military uniform, as the vehicle headed to the wall, following the procedures given to them by the soldiers in the communication tower._

_The truck sped past him, driving straight towards the aperture at the base of the wall, which was the heavily secured and guarded entrance bay; the only one on this side of the Hong Kong wall._

_Chanyeol managed to catch a glimpse of the survivors in the truck as they passed him by, looking either very scared for their lives or burning with determination to get to the end of the bridge and towards safety._

_Whatever it was, once within the walls, they would be subjected to the vaccine and quarantine for several months, until they were cleared to join the society within the walls after more extensive procedures._

_Chanyeol hoped that this would be worth all the millions of lives he was risking within the walls, just to save eight others who were the stubborn ones to reject the notion of the vaccine and living within the safe confines of the wall in the first place._

_Chanyeol would have probably ignored their request, ordering his soldiers to go ahead and activate their heavy artillery guns mounted onto the wall to prevent the zombies from even approaching close to the walls, even if meant sacrificing the humans in the crossfire._  
  
_If anything, he had been the person who had literally sacrificed billions for one person. It wasn't past Chanyeol to forsake eight for millions more._

_Also, if he didn’t know that Kyungsoo would be around there at the time, Chanyeol would have never said yes to the survivor's request. He would have most likely let those eight people die._

_Because Chanyeol could never say no to Kyungsoo; his only weakness who was yet also the source of his strength._

_As the truck was passing by; Kyungsoo, dressed and shrouded in all black jumped off of it, rolling onto the asphalt before quickly regaining his composure like it was a natural thing for him to do. Kyungsoo quickly stood back up again, drawing his own sword out too and ready for the confrontation._

_Kyungsoo saw Chanyeol standing across from him on another lane on the bridge, as he pulled down the hood of his coat, removing the mask covering the lower half of his face at the same time too._

_This was the same man who was known as the ‘traveling swordsman’, an urban legend and probably an actual one too at the same time._

_Kyungsoo had been wandering around alone on the streets on Zhuhai, when he ran into the group of survivors, who had accidentally stumbled upon and disrupted an abandoned underground parking lot which was now a nesting den for the zombies._

_Kyungsoo had assisted them in their escape, somehow managing to convince them to give in and make it for the Hong Kong island wall by crossing on the causeway bridge._

_The survivors had counted Kyungsoo included into the total of "eight people" which they reported their numbers as to the communications team of soldiers guarding the wall. Therefore, it was really seven of them, Chanyeol now discovered._

_It had probably been a few months since they last saw each other but the circumstance of their meeting this time was nothing strange to them anymore. In recent years, it was quite often that they were reunited with each other after a period of separation like this._

_"When are you calling to fire?" Kyungsoo questioned, pushing some of his hair out of his face that had been strewn by the wind that was now blowing over the bridge again. Since the apocalypse and the lack of a proper hairdresser outside the walls, Kyungsoo had been keeping his hair longer, sometimes reaching up to his shoulders- something he never did before the Apocalypse came to happen._

_"Soon," Chanyeol responded, looking over his shoulder at the truck of survivors now being received at the entrance bay and then towards the horde of zombie very close and approaching them._

_"That's tentative, Chanyeol," Kyungsoo commented, moving into a stance ready to attack at the zombies now a good two hundred meters from them approximately._

_"I know but I told them to hold their fire for now," Chanyeol smiled fondly and longingly towards Kyungsoo, even as the world around them was crumbling into decay._

_Kyungsoo swung his sword at the first line of zombies once they had come into reach, slashing and cutting down almost effortlessly with his steel blade. Kyungsoo was focused and had his head all into the battle, just like the many he had been through in the past two decades._

_Kyungsoo was burning with the spirit of determination, to protect the survivors and give them enough time to enter and have the walls secured again. This was all he lived for, now, to save even if it was just one person, to make the world a better place even in its darkest chapter._

_Chanyeol jumped into the action too, barely a split second after Kyungsoo, leaping into the battle, swinging his sword and cutting down the enemies surrounding them, effortlessly. He was used to this. This was his life now._

_Not only would Chanyeol prevent the zombie horde from progressing any further, holding down the line, he would also protect Kyungsoo even if the latter didn't really need his help anymore._

_The years of living and adjusting to such a world had honed their physical and mental capabilities to be far greater than what they possessed before the Apocalypse. Being immortal and literally unkillable sure did help a lot though._

_"This should be enough," Kyungsoo gasped for breath, his back pressed to Chanyeol's as they finished taking down the first incoming wave of the zombie horde; a second wave was expected to arrive in less than a minute from there._

_"Yeah, the survivors have entered the walls within the quarantine zone and they're waiting for us now," Chanyeol said, passing on the information he had gotten from his soldiers through his earpiece. Chanyeol turned his neck around to be able to look at Kyungsoo, "It's not really wise for us to stay out here and wait for the incoming waves. The artillery guns can take care of the rest. Should we just make the run for it?"_

_"Then that means I probably have to stay within the Hong Kong wall with you for a week at least until it’s safe to go back out," Kyungsoo sighed, not so much worried about the incoming horde of zombies compared to that. To him, dealing with zombies was just a stroll in the park._

_"Well, you've been gone long enough for your heat suppressant supplies to run out by now. Isn't it about time to take care of 'that'," Chanyeol wiggled his eyebrows, teasing Kyungsoo._

_Kyungsoo rolled his eyes, grunting, "-fine," before making a mad dash without warning, towards the closing entrance bay of the wall._

_Chanyeol snickered before chasing after Kyungsoo, making his way to the entrance bay too before the zombies could get to them, as his soldiers sighed that they were up to it again._

 

_Sure, they seemed to be avoiding each other for now but it was only because they would have an eternity with each other. Even when the sun burned out, even when planets collided with each other, they would still continue to live on and love each other._

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

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